Katharina Wagner

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Katharina Wagner in 2009.

Katharina Wagner (born 21 May 1978 in Bayreuth) is a German opera stage director and is the director of the Bayreuth Festival. She is the daughter of Wolfgang Wagner and Gudrun Wagner (née Armann), great-granddaughter of Richard Wagner, and great-great granddaughter of Hungarian composer Franz Liszt.

Career[edit]

Wagner has staged Der fliegende Holländer in Würzburg and Lohengrin in Budapest. Her directorial début at the Bayreuth Festival, staging a production of Richard Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg in July 2007, was booed at its premiere,[1] but established a following which returned to watch the production evolve as Wagner made changes in each of the five years it was on view. Wagner also took a bow after every performance, with audiences split between bravas and boos.

On 1 September 2008, Katharina Wagner was named together with her half-sister Eva Wagner-Pasquier as the new director of the Bayreuth Festival by the Richard Wagner Foundation, succeeding their father Wolfgang.[2] This followed an extended family dispute.[3] They were chosen in preference to their cousin Nike Wagner and the Belgian opera director and administrator Gerard Mortier, who had placed a late joint bid for the directorship on 24 August.[4][5]

In October 2010, Wagner planned to visit Israel in order to invite the Israel Chamber Orchestra to play a concert in July 2011 at the Bayreuth town hall, to end a post-1945 boycott of Wagner's music in Israel. Her visit was canceled after hostility from Holocaust survivors.[6]

In 2014 it was announced that Eva would be stepping down from the co-directorship leaving, in accord with her father's will,[7] Katharina in sole charge.[8]

In April 2020 it was announced that Katharina would have to step down from her position as director of the festival until further notice because of an unspecified long-term illness. The 81-year-old, former commercial managing director, Heinz-Dieter Sense, acted as a temporary representative for Wagner in the following months.[9] This was the first time since Heinz Tietjen in the 1930s that a non-family member had been in charge of the festival.[10] Katharina returned to work in September 2020.[11]

Productions[edit]

  • Der fliegende Holländer (Würzburg)
  • Lohengrin (Budapest)
  • Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (Bayreuth)
  • Rienzi (Bremen)
  • Tristan und Isolde (Bayreuth)
  • Lohengrin (Barcelona, 2020) Katharina's new production, and her debut in Barcelona, was cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic lockdown in Catalonia[12]

Further reading[edit]

  • Carr, Jonathan: The Wagner Clan: The Saga of Germany's Most Illustrious and Infamous Family. Atlantic Monthly Press, 2007. ISBN 0-87113-975-8

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Connolly, Kate (27 July 2007). "Ms Wagner jeered as great-grandad's opera flops at Bayreuth". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 7 May 2010.
  2. ^ BBC News (1 September 2008). Daughters chosen to run Bayreuth. BBC News. Retrieved on 1 September 2008 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7592659.stm.
  3. ^ Kate Connolly (21 June 2009). "Wagner's heir vows to lay bare her family's Nazi history". The Observer. Retrieved 16 December 2014.
  4. ^ Hickley, Catherine (1 September 2008). "Wagner Sisters Katharina, Eva Named to Lead Bayreuth (Update2)". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 1 September 2008.
  5. ^ McGroarty, Patrick; Ron Blum (1 September 2008). "Bayreuth names Wagner half-sisters as co-directors". International Herald Tribune. Retrieved 1 September 2008.
  6. ^ Noam Ben-Zeev (7 October 2010). "Bad people can still write really good music". Haaretz. Retrieved 7 October 2010.
  7. ^ Service, Tom (26 February 2014). "Eva Wagner to leave Bayreuth - what does this mean for the festival?". The Guardian. Guardian News & Media Limited. Retrieved 29 April 2020.
  8. ^ Gereben, Janos (25 February 2014). "Bayreuth: And Then There Was One". San Francisco Classical Voice. San Francisco Classical Voice. Retrieved 29 April 2020.
  9. ^ Auermann, Marcel; Vorbröker, Henrik; Schultejans, Britta (27 April 2020). "Bayreuth Festival director Katharina Wagner "sick long-term"". Kurier (in German). Bayreuth. Retrieved 28 April 2020.
  10. ^ Service, Tom (26 February 2014). "Eva Wagner to leave Bayreuth - what does this mean for the festival?". The Guardian. Guardian News & Media Limited. Retrieved 29 April 2020.
  11. ^ Boutsko, Anastassia (5 July 2021). "Wagner festival director reveals plans for 2021". Deutsche Welle. Retrieved 2 August 2021.
  12. ^ Opera Barcelona, Liceu. "Lohengrin". Gran Teatre del Liceu. Retrieved 7 April 2020.
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