Debut for Wagner's great offspring
2002-09-20 16:24
Wuerzburg, Germany - There's no doubt about it: the small provincial Mainfranken theatre in this pretty little city in south west Germany has scored a spectacular publicity coup as it launches its new season this weekend.
No, it's not the fact that the first new production of the
season will open on the same day as the national elections.
Neither is it the choice of work - productions of Der
Fliegende Hollaender (The Flying Dutchman), one of Richard
Wagner's best-loved operas, are ten-a-penny in a country where
almost every sizeable town has its own opera house and orchestra.
The reason why the 70 music critics from both inside and outside Germany are fighting for a seat in a theatre which only normally attracts the interest of local newspapers is the fact that the new staging Sunday will be the directorial debut of Katharina Wagner, the composer's 24-year-old great-granddaughter.
"We're putting on other equally good productions this season,
but none is going to arouse as much as interest as the one by
Katharina Wagner," said Reinhold Roettger, the manager of the
theatre, which just 18 months ago was fighting for survival.
Conducting the new Wuerzburg production, all aspects of which
Katharina is keeping under very strict wraps until Sunday, will be the theatre's own general music director, Swiss conductor Daniel Klajner.
The idea of inviting Katharina Wagner to direct came from
Wuerzburg's Richard Wagner Association and its 80-year-old
chairperson, Margot Mueller, who was looking for an appropriate way to celebrate the association's 20th anniversary.
The association, one of the largest in Germany, sees one of its main duties in the promotion of up-and-coming talent and it will be hosting the glitzy gala premiere on Sunday, a week ahead of the "normal" premiere on September 28.
Katharina's directing debut is creating such excitement because as the daughter of Wolfgang Wagner, the composer's 82-year-old grandson, she is one of the candidates to take over the running of the Bayreuth Festival, the prestigious annual summer festival dedicated exclusively to the works of Richard Wagner.
Indeed, Wolfgang and his circle are widely expected to attend on Sunday.
Wolfgang has been in sole charge at Bayreuth since 1966 and is
keen for Katharina to take the helm, even though two other direct
descendants of the composer - Eva Wagner-Pasquier and Nike Wagner
- would normally have prior claim to the throne.
Eva is Wolfgang's daughter by his first marriage and Nike is his niece and the daughter of Wolfgang's brother Wieland who died in 1966.
But in the long and bitter internecine feud within the Wagner
dynasty for control of the world-famous festival, Wolfgang has
dismissed both Eva and Nike as unsuitable.
He even refused to bow to the official decision by the Richard
Wagner Foundation in Bayreuth last year to appoint Eva as his
successor and named Klaus Schultz, his steadfast supporter and
long-time confidant, as his artistic advisor.
The move was seen as a way for Schultz to take over as caretaker of the festival once Wolfgang steps down or dies, giving Katharina time to garner sufficient experience so that she could eventually take the reins.
So far, her theatre experience is limited, merely acting as
assistant to her father in the critically-slammed Bayreuth
production of Die Meistersinger von Nuernberg (The Meistersinger
of Nuremberg). - Sapa-AFP
- SAPA