Interviewed by
Reinhard J Brembeck
Katharina Wagner is the great-granddaughter of the composer Richard Wagner, the 44-year-old works as a director and has headed the Bayreuth Festival as the successor to her father Wolfgang since 2007. On Monday she opened the festival with a new production of “Tristan and Isolde”, followed a week later later the four-part “Ring des Nibelungen”. Not only Corona makes things complicated. A week ago, the “Ring” conductor Pietari Inkinen had to give up his conducting due to illness and was replaced by Cornelius Meister, who was supposed to conduct “Tristan”, which Markus Poschner is now doing. And then there are the accusations of sexism in-house. Of the North Bavarian Courier did in the past week of attacks on women, insults and sexist sayings on the Green Hill reported. But nothing was ever easy in Bayreuth. Katharina Wagner, who keeps an eye on her vibrating mobile phone during the interview, knows this too. Could be new bad news.