Bayreuth opening under new Wagners; co-director wants to bring opera ‘to the people’

Bayreuth opening under new Wagners

MUNICH — A new generation of Wagners is at the helm as the annual Bayreuth festival opens this weekend, with composer Richard Wagner’s great-granddaughter saying that she hopes to help bring “opera to the people.”

Half-sisters Katharina Wagner, 31, and Eva Wagner-Pasquier, 64, were named as co-directors in September — becoming the first new management team in more than a half-century after their 89-year-old father, Wolfgang, agreed to end his long reign.

Festival-goers may not immediately notice much change; with performers booked years ahead, this year’s event offers no new productions. It opens Saturday with Christoph Marthaler’s staging of “Tristan and Isolde” and runs through Aug. 28.

However, the new team has innovations to offer on the sidelines — notably a version of “The Flying Dutchman” for children, reduced to an hour, whose 10 performances are long since sold out.

Following its first live Internet broadcast in 2008, a move championed by Katharina Wagner, the festival this year will offer a performance of “Tristan and Isolde” live on the Web Aug. 9 — with Webcast prices cut to euro14.90 ($21.20) from last year’s steep euro49.

The same performance also will be screened live in a central Bayreuth square, with free admission.

“It is a matter of the heart for me to bring opera to the people,” Katharina Wagner said at a news conference in Munich on Monday. “Opera is a niche product. I am working with my heart and soul on this product.”

Wagner said Marthaler’s “Tristan and Isolde” would lend itself well to the webcast and outside screening. “He is a master when it comes to staging boredom, standstill and desperation,” she said.

At the Richard Wagner-designed Festspielhaus itself, the new directors are offering pre-performance talks by experts Katharina Wagner hopes will promote a “better understanding” of the works. They also are introducing slimmed-down programs as a substitute for the unwieldy euro28 volumes offered in recent years.

Wagner fans typically wait up to 10 years to obtain tickets for the festival.

Among the offerings on this year’s roster are Katharina Wagner’s own staging of “Die Meistersinger von Nuernberg,” now in its third year; Tankred Dorst’s “Der Ring des Nibelungen;” and Stefan Herheim’s “Parsifal,” which premiered last year.

The half-sisters’ appointment ended a years-long battle in which Wolfgang Wagner, who had a lifetime contract, long resisted efforts to push him out. He finally agreed to step aside after last year’s festival; and Katharina and Eva then teamed up to beat out a rival bid from their cousin, Nike Wagner

The winning team offered a combination of the youth and the steady hand of experience. Eva Wagner-Pasquier’s resume includes years as an artistic consultant at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in France and the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

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On the Net:

www.festspiele-bayreuth.de/english/english(underscore)156.html