OPERA BAYREUTH FESTIVAL

**FILE**Wolfgang Wagner, a descendant of composer Richard Wagner, stands in front of the Festspielhaus theater in Bayreuth, Germany, on July 21, 1998. The Festspielhaus theater was built by Richard Wagner in the 1870s as the ideal setting for his epic operas, and the cultural elite flock to the Bavarian town of Bayreuth each year to see the Valkyries fly in their natural setting. One hundred and thirty years after its founding, the annual Bayreuth Festival, which opens Tuesday, July 25,2006, is a fascinating tangle of contradictions: It has never been more popular; nor, some say, more irrelevant. (AP Photo/Frank Boxler)