‘Katie Wagner is Bayreuth’s Angela Merkel’
mainAn interesting analogy in Der Tagesspiegel.
Katharina Wagner, after ten stormy years, simply bulldozes her way to survival. She’s not concerned about being liked. She just wants to keep her seat.
There is, however, one critical difference. Merkel is elected by public vote. Katie is a hereditary autocrat with no accountability or democratic legitimacy.
Read here.
She is controversial, but the article also mentions:
“Die Etablierung der Kinder-Oper für Bayreuth, die allmähliche Öffnung des Bollwerks Bayreuth, Online-Tickets und Open-Air-Übertragung mit Public Viewing, auch das gehört zur Dekaden-Bilanz von Katharina Wagner. Keine Revoluzzerin, eine behutsame, auch trotzige Erneuerin.”
(“Establishing children’s opera for Bayreuth, the gradual opening of the fortress Bayreuth, Online ticketing and Open Air transmissions with public viewing, that also belongs to the balance of her past decade. Not a revolutionary, but a careful, also stubborn reformer.”)
The comparison is probably meant to imply fatigue, that people are tired of both so called leaders (who have caused much unnecessary disruption and pain) and that regime change is not only inevitable but imminent.
Your opinion notwithstanding, the title of this thread is Norman (rather gratuitously) paraphrasing the original wording.
Christiane Peitz, who wrote the article, is quite clear and unambiguous…
“Katharina Wagner eröffnet als Intendantin am Mittwoch zum zehnten Mal die Festspiele in Bayreuth. Was ihre Krisenfestigkeit angeht, hat sie längst Angela-Merkel-Format.”
English: On Wednesday, Katharina Wagner will open the Bayreuth Festival as its director for the tenth time. Regarding her crisis-resilience [or ability to prevail in the face of crises], she has long attained Angela-Merkel-caliber.
Nicely tongue-in-cheek: “The somewhat silly proverbial ‘behind every successful man, there is a clever woman’ is reversed. Hats off for having put up with Thielemann for so long!”
Dr. Merkel – a disrupter of (greater than) Trumpian proportions for western Europe.
Dreadful woman.
And here I thought Trump is the greatest in everything?