Germany’s prestigious Bayreuth Festival has welcomed its first-ever Asian guest conductor, and the result appears to have been a popular success. Conductor Eiji Oue, music director of Japan’s Osaka Philharmonic and late of the Minnesota Orchestra, took to the Bayreuth podium to open the festival, conducting Wagner’s Tristan & Isolde. Oue, always a firebrand on the podium, reportedly drew cheers for his efforts.