“Facing derision, and other inflamed passions, is part of life at the festival. You either give yourself over to the fanaticism of the place or miss the point, Bayreuth virtually requiring complete sensory immersion. There is the music to hear and the staging to witness, of course, and also the sublime opera house to experience, with its unearthly acoustics, not to mention the bratwurst at intermission. But then there is also the Villa Wahnfried, the Wagner museum, with piped-in snippets of historic performances swelling in the library, rows of seats laid out there like pews for rapturous supplicants.”