| The Wagner Festival is in full swing The main event of the Wagner Festival in Bayreuth, celebrating its 125th anniversary, was the production of the mega-tetralogy “The Ring of the Nibelungs”, which was carried out by the authoritative German director Jurgen Flimm. Over the course of a month, the cycle of four operas (Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried, Twilight of the Gods) will be performed three times - four days in a row, as Wagner himself intended this grandiose performance. The army of true Wagnerians flocking to the small Bavarian town every summer is constantly growing - crowds of people with identical cardboard signs Suche Karte ("Looking for a ticket") have long become an integral part of the Bayreuth landscape.
Meanwhile, the atmosphere of the festival is far from idyll. In recent years, the attention of the press and public has been focused not so much on the opera productions themselves, but on the family battles of the composer’s heirs. Many believe that the current head of the festival, 81-year-old Wolfgang Wagner (grandson), has stayed too long in his place and that stagnation has begun to be felt in the festival programs - Bayreuth has been repeatedly reproached for the excessive conservatism of its productions. Over the past few years, major singers and conductors have announced their refusal to perform in Bayreuth - recently adding Placido Domingo to their list, whom the obstinate Wolfgang Wagner reproached for insufficient rehearsals. The Spanish tenor's statement to BBC News sounded quite categorically: “At my age, such a spat means the end of the affair with Bayreuth. There is nothing worse when people from all sides pester you with questions: “When is this old man going to leave his post?”
Domingo is not lying. Wolfgang Wagner was asked to retire by the festival management, relatives, and the press. He, however, tenaciously clings to his chair, explaining this by the fact that he does not see a successor for himself. Wolfgang's daughter, Eva Wagner-Pasquier, was considered the most likely candidate to succeed her father a few years ago, but this year she openly stated that she was not interested in working on the festival until Wolfgang retired. The composer’s great-niece, art critic Niki Wagner, behaves much more aggressively, attacking her elderly relative in the European media.
In truth, these family squabbles, which are as old as the festival itself, have not surprised anyone for a long time. Many years before the pandemonium with the director's chair began, the Wagners were accused of connections with the fascists, about which several books and essays were written. (Wagner’s children were friends with Hitler, and in the literary works of the composer himself one can find unambiguous discussions about the “chosen nation.”) All this has not yet affected the popularity of the festival; but it is obvious that to overcome the Bayreuth stagnation we need a person with fresh creative ideas. Maybe not even from the Wagner family. Mikhail FIKHTENGOLTS |
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