Merkel says she’ll skip Bayreuth red carpet

Merkel says she’ll skip Bayreuth red carpet

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norman lebrecht

June 09, 2016

The Chancellor can’t make opening night this year.

But she’ll come later in the festival, she says, and pay for her own tickets, self and husband.

 

merkel bayreuth2

Some say she’s keen to avoid the security risk of an Islam-themed Parsifal.

 

Comments

  • Sean says:

    We’ll – as Wagner still has a link to antisemittism this should be an excellent gateway to German culture for the millions arriving from Africa and Middle East! Nothing to be afraid of, Angie.

  • Theodore McGuiver says:

    She did the same last year. Her husband even came back, and sat with us after the final Lohengrin on the canteen terrace.

  • John Borstlap says:

    As long as the coalition is under threat, one should tread cautiously on the carpet of Wagnerian impressions.

  • Holly Golightly says:

    “Security risk”. Priceless. Doesn’t matter so much for the rest of Germany, though.

  • Mick says:

    She is running a very real “security risk” of losing her job soon for what she did to her country and the rest of Europe during the last year.

    • Peter says:

      She didn’t do much. She just complied with the orders.

      • John Borstlap says:

        Two utterly ridiculous remarks, born of ignorance.

        • Mick says:

          http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/10/25/19/2DC452D900000578-0-image-a-7_1445802744298.jpg
          It’s not about knowledge or ignorance, just common sense. I don’t know how twisted one should be to sympathize with something like this, rather than getting horrified.

          • Holly Golightly says:

            Totally agree.

          • John Borstlap says:

            Talking about ‘twisted’……. Merkel merely reacted from a deep, European humanistic urge, demonstrating a Germany very different from popular negative imagery. The problem is not the influx in itself, but the Europeanization of refugees, and currently there is an immense effort going-on, and not only by the German authorities but also and often mostly by the civilians, and it works – the majority of refugees are already quite westernized. The stupidity of people merely screaming that borders have to be closed whatever the consequences, means that they become partly responsible for the mass dying which will be the result, and this flies in the face of what Europe tries to be. This anti-refugee mentality is anti-civilizational, anti-European, and in fact as barbarious as the violence which sent these people on their dangerous flight in the first place. If you follow German TV documentaries about the subject, you will find that refugees only want to be safe and are quite willing to ‘pay the price’ of becoming European. Their visions of a normal future, even of their own countries, is a society along European lines.

            When you travel through France and Germany, you see that there are areas struggling with depopulation because young people go to the big cities. The argument that there is not enough space is therefore invalid, as so many other arguments against immigration.

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