Bayreuth chairman frets over Thielemann-Wagner breakdown
NewsThe chair of the Bayreuth Festival’s board of governors, Georg von Waldenfels, has spoken of his unhappiness at the rift between his favourite conductor Christian Thielemann and the festival’s director Katharina Wagner.
Asked about Thielemann’s absence next year, he says: ‘It’s a decision by Katharina Wagner’.
Katharina’s contract ends in 2025. Asked about the future, Waldenfels says: ‘everything is open.’
UPDATE: We have received the following clarification request from the Bayreuth press office:
With reference to your article with the quotation from Dr. von Waldenfels as to why Christian Thielemann will not be conducting in Bayreuth next year, I would like to inform you that this does not correspond to the facts. Mrs. Wagner had offered him the conducting, however, there were Corona-conditioned date shifts in Dresden, according to which Mr. Thielemann has no time to be in Bayreuth in 2023, because the Staatskapelle Dresden celebrates a big jubilee, at which he will still conduct as chief in Dresden and therefore was not released for Bayreuth. In addition to Ms. Wagner, Mr. Thielemann has already confirmed this several times in interviews. Mr. von Waldenfels knew about this scheduling conflict, and the issue was also discussed several times in the Board of Directors. I would therefore ask you to correct the announcement. Ms. Wagner is in discussion with Mr. Thielemann about the Parsifal Dirigat 2025.
Hubertus Herrmann
Leiter Presse-Kommunikation
Thielemann will come back as director general.
It’s all so very predictable.
Gustavo: Wishful thinking. It seems more obvious that he will take over the State Opera in his hometown after Barenboim.
But of course it all depends on a conductor’s relationship with local politicians, something CT has had difficulties dealing with many times.
He won’t. Thielemann likes conducting, not paperwork. He will end up in Berlin for good.
Bayreuth is a short summer festival he could easily steer from the Berlin position.
And he doesn’t need much prep for Wagner.
Of the two, it is Katharina who is clearly expendable. Her era has in no way been distinguished, either by the standard of productions nor by the increasingly provincial casting and conducting – with only a very few exceptions. Her own two productions of Meistersinger and Tristan were also not particularly memorable. Thielemann is a difficult character but in terms of Wagner knowledge and ability virtually without serious rivals in that field. Katharina’s contract should not be extended and if, as it seems, there is no other Wagner family member able or willing to take over, then an experienced Intendant should be found. I cannot believe that there would not be a stream of applicants.
Her fingernails suggest that she doesn’t play a musical instrument.
I fear this may be the beginning of the end for Katharina.
She has dispensed with the Keeper of the Grail.
Why fear when you can rejoice?
Greatly.
Genes don’t make genius.
It’s true that genes don’t make a genius. Wolfgang and Katharina both had/have business skills, but few artistic ones.
Nike, on the other hand, would be an attractive option, if she has the stomach for it…
Hasn’t she already been on the way out due to ill health?
Maybe Louise Wagner’s time has come?
I’ll never forget singing in the chorus of a dusty old meistersinger production in Vienna with Thielemann conducting and looking out to see skinheads in the balcony boxes. That was ~10 years ago. The guy is hugely problematic. What’s more, especially if we’re going to take Netrebko down, Thielemann’s ploys at being apolitical need heavy scrutiny as well. He’s also known for being a total bitch in rehearsals. I trust Katharina’s instincts over his any day.
You may trust Wagner’s instincts over Thielemann’s but surely it is the talent that counts. Non-musical matters are also, of course, of concern, and it is not only the political views.
She’s not conducting. Her job is to position the work, as you must know. Both are talented in different ways. But as we see today, she’s asking for the word Führer to be replacement and Thielemann’s against it. I thought on your diagram of the situation his talent was musical? Yet he keeps making sure Wagner’s antisemitism stays intact. Who is that helping? Why are so many readers here comfortable with that?
“skinheads in the balcony”
– Would you prefer to see them in the loges? (That’d be their grandpas, just as racist but respectably bourgeois racist.)
– If only skinheads in the US and the UK attended operas!
Loges, yes that’s the correct term. I don’t think you understand the vibe they sent to the house. We were onstage to ridicule Beckmesser and there they were, visually supporting a man who doesn’t clearly distance himself from anti Semitism enough as is. This occurred on multiple nights. And was one main reason I eventually quit.
I don’t have a horse in this face. But I’m straining to think of a single conducting situation with CT that has ended on good terms. Munich, Dresden, Bayreuth…
I have no idea if this is a representative example, but apparently Andris Nelsons left Bayreuth in a huff when CT sat in on one of his rehearsals for Parsifal and suggested to Nelsons that it needed to be done differently. If this story is true–and it appears to be–what does this tell us about CT?
This episode tells us how Mr Nelsons spoiled a good occasion to learn something about Parsifal…
🙂
It was never the conducting that caused his troubles in Berlin, Munich, Dresden, Bayreuth.
It was always his sociopathic character.
The Nelsons episode: we who were not there can’t judge. Drawing conjecture from knowing both conductors, probably CT acted like the undiplomatic arse he so often is, and AN was not well prepared to serve Wagner either.
Thielemann is the best living conductor of Wagner’s music by far. This greatly outweighs all the gossip and sniping.
More generally, it is time the dismal dance of the descendants ended at Bayreuth. The DNA of the progenitor is in the ground and he should be cloned forthwith with present day technology. I can think of no other artist more worthy of rebirth except Bach, and his location of HIS grave is somewhat in doubt. Not so with Wagner. We just must be sure we get him and not
Cosima.