BAYREUTH, Germany (dpa) – Nearly two years since the start of an attempt to engineer the succession to Wolfgang Wagner as head of the Richard Wagner Opera Festival, everything now appears to be in ruins.The situation remains as it has always been: the 81-year-old grandson of the 19th century opera composer is stubbornly insisting on his right to determine if and when he steps down. And, he still wants to install his second wife, Gudrun, as his successor.
It means that the Richard Wagner Foundation, one of the main sponsors of the opera festival, is standing empty-handed.A further casualty is Hans Zehetmair, minister of culture for the state of Bavaria, which also has a financial stake in the festival.Zehetmair has in recent months gone far out onto a limb and sought to use all his persuasive powers to get Wolfgang Wagner finally to step aside.But neither an open threat to shut off the money, nor a one-on-one meeting with Wagner, was of any avail.“I pulled out all the registers one more time in order to make it clear to him that this also has to do with his reputation, which is now in peril after half a century of successful work,” Zehetmair said about the latest unsuccessful talks with Wagner lasting 90 minutes.Even the descriptions of what went on in the meeting differ widely between the two men.Zehetmair called the talks a failure. But Wagner said he saw a chance “for further negotiations leading to a return to objective discussions”.Observers in Bayreuth, however, now see little room for manoeuvre remaining for further talks, now that the positions on both sides have hardened.Wolfgang Wagner, who together with his brother Wieland resurrected the opera festival a few years after World War II and who has been the sole head after Wieland’s death in 1966, remains insistent on the Richard Wagner Foundation’s constitution of 1973, on his right to a life-long hold on the position and on his wife Gudrun being regarded as an acceptable successor.“He basically will neither listen to nor accept even the slightest notion of a path which might pose the question of a successor who is not of the (Wagner family) blood line, with the exception of his wife,” an official at the Bavarian Culture Ministry commented.The question of the successorship will become a political issue at the end of March, at the latest, when the Wagner Foundation council meets to try once again to find a way out of the impasse.Julian Nida-Ruemelin, cultural affairs minister of state with the federal government in Berlin, personally plans to attend the meeting.Before that, officials said, both the federal German state and the state of Bavaria plan to “consult closely”.The signs are now pointing to Zehetmair seeking to mobilise public opinion to put pressure on Wolfgang Wagner to accept a female successor – namely his daughter from his first marriage, Eva Wagner- Pasquier.Even the most devout Wagner fans are now shaking their heads in bewilderment about Wolfgang Wagner’s behaviour. People see his reputation sliding and his life-long work devoted to his grandfather now paling by comparison to the theatrics surrounding the succession dispute.The Sueddeutsche Zeitung in Munich months ago concluded that Wolfgang Wagner is a “lonely old man, stubborn and isolated”.
