Culture
Katharina Wagner remains festival director
The artistic director and managing director of the Bayreuth Festival, Katharina Wagner in the festival hall. (archive image) photo
© Nicolas Armer/dpa
Now it’s official: The composer’s great-granddaughter Katharina Wagner remains head of the Bayreuth Festival – but much else is changing.
The director of the Bayreuth Festival, Katharina Wagner remains boss at the Green Hill. Her contract has been extended for another five years until 2030, as Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth (Greens) and Bavaria’s Art Minister Markus Blume (CSU) announced on Monday. This was agreed upon after a discussion with Wagner in Munich.
However, unlike before, the 45-year-old will no longer hold one of the two managing director positions. “The overall management will be transferred to the new position of general manager, who will be responsible for the festival organizationally and economically,” said the joint statement from Munich and Berlin. This should “enable her to have an even greater focus on the artistic direction of the festival.”
Great-granddaughter of the composer Richard Wagner
“According to the shareholders, Prof. Wagner has led the festival with great artistic success in recent years and has shown promising impulses for the artistic further development of the festival with the concept presented,” says the statement.
“I am pleased about the trust shown by the shareholders and look forward to another five years of collaboration. I am very pleased that together we have found a way to strengthen artistic autonomy,” said Wagner, according to the ministry. “My entire focus can now be purely on creative work.”
Katharina Wagner is the great-granddaughter of the composer Richard Wagner and has been directing the Bayreuth Festival since 2008 as the successor to her father Wolfgang Wagner – initially together with her half-sister Eva Wagner-Pasquier, and since 2015 alone.