Richard Wagner News

With Katharina Wagner in the bidding as the next possible leader of the Bayreuth festival, her production of "Die Meistersinger von Nuernberg" is being debated with a zeal unusual even for the venue — the world's showcase for her great-grandfather Richard Wagner's works.

Her father, Wolfgang Wagner, is 87 and has said he is ready to step down as the present festival head — but only if Katharina is allowed to succeed him. So Wednesday's performance was a closely watched gauge of her artistic ability.

Thursday's newspaper reviews, however, ranged from lukewarm to negative. The German edition of the Financial Times headlined its review "Lack of Purpose in Bayreuth" while the weekly "Der Spiegel" focused on the "storm of boos" from the audience. And the daily "Die Welt" wrote that "a lot of fine-tuning is needed" before the production is shown again next year.

Experimentation ruled this production. No quaint gabled houses, medieval town squares or period costumes here. Instead, the audience saw a plot turned topsy turvy, a villain turned hero, a hero turned wimp — and a few minutes of full frontal nudity.

It was definitely not the stuff embraced by traditional Wagnerites. But if Wagner was concerned, she did not show it Thursday.

"They didn't understand it," she told The Associated Press of the negative voices. She said she was relieved and insisted that — no matter what the final judgment of Wednesday's premiere was — she was ready to take over from her father "if the conditions were right."

"I do not feel that directing puts me in a stronger position" for the job, she added, saying that "running a festival is a completely different thing" from producing opera.

And she suggested the succession issue was not pressing, pointing out that her father has a lifetime contract and had not broached the subject recently because "he knew that I was working so intensively on 'The Meistersinger.'"

Still, the issue has gained special significance this year. Wolfgang's niece Nike Wagner, and Eva Pasquier-Wagner, a daughter from his first marriage, are both experienced managers of artistic or musical events and have indicated interest in the job. But Wolfgang favors Katharina, his youngest daughter.

Increasing speculation is fed by media suggestions that it is time for a change.

The respected German weekly Die Zeit recently described Wolfgang Wagner as "an old man leaning on a cane for support who hears poorly, occasionally seems mentally absent and whose appearances from behind the wings are becoming increasingly rare."

Bayreuth Mayor Michael Hohl, director of the Richard Wagner Foundation that controls succession and other major issues, said the foundation would look at the succession question this fall.

Three outcomes are possible, Hohl told the AP: the status quo, with Wolfgang Wagner insisting that his lifetime contract be honored; the foundation accepting his choice of Katharina as successor; or if he surprisingly drops his insistence on Katharina, a selection process that would likely include Nike and Eva.

Still, the influential Hohl suggested he could back Katharina.

"I liked it," he said of Wednesday's performance. "Katharina is a real candidate."

"If you don't talk and argue about a premiere then it is not worth anything," Bavarian Governor Edmund Stoiber declared at a post-performance party for Katharina.

Katharina herself shrugged when asked if great-grandfather Richard would have approved.

"I don't think he would have liked everything completely but at least ... I think I hit his vein of humor," she replied.

More important was a director's right to shape a work, particularly one first performed 139 years ago, she said.

Touching on a traditionalists' nerve, Katharina said she was open to suggestions that future festivals broaden their repertoire past the seven operas selected each year from Wagner's 10 mature works — but said such a decision was up to the foundation, and carried certain risks.

"Bayreuth has gained a certain mythological status," she said. "If you scratch this status ... you have to be aware of the consequences."