Bayreuth, Germany - Three female descendants of composer Richard Wagner battled Monday for the contract to run the Bayreuth Wagnerian opera festival in Germany, with the likely loser pleading to her cousin not to switch sympathies. Half-sisters Eva Wagner-Pasquier, 63, and Katharina Wagner, 29, have drawn into the lead after Katharina foretold a joint proposal to take over the festival from their father, Wolfgang, 88. The festival board meets April 29.
Nike Wagner, 62, Wolfgang's niece, expressed anger Monday that Eva was being asked to break a pact between the two older women. Katharina confirmed she had made up with her sister. Eva was silent.
As if that were not operatic enough, opera lovers noted that Wolfgang's rejection 32 years ago of Eva and begrudging re-acceptance of her resembles the plot of the Wagner opera Ring of the Nibelungs, where Wotan throws out his favourite daughter Bruennhilde.
Running Bayreuth is one of Germany's last inherited offices.
Bavarian Minister of Culture Thomas Goppel called Monday on Katharina and Eva to draft a joint proposal.
After years of deadlock over the succession, many German opera fans have voiced relief at Katharina's offer of compromise and are hoping Eva, who was offered the job by the board in 2001, will accept, despite memories of her father calling her "incompetent.
Katharina, who has already directed one Bayreuth opera, told a German newspaper, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, she could not promise joint leadership with Eva would work, "but I suppose it will because I consider it a very good solution.
A spokesman for Eva Wagner-Pasquier, who is co-director of a French arts festival at Aix-en-Provence, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur
