Tradition, revolution and reaction in Bayreuth

The media coverage before the premiere was almost unprecedented, and even surpassed the hype around Christoph Schlingensief‘s “Parsifal“. Because this new production of “The Mastersingers of Nuremberg” was not only a festival directing debut, it was also that of a potential festival director. The 29-year-old Katharina Wagner is the daughter and preferred candidate of Wolfgang Wagner, who at almost 88 has headed the festival – founded by his grandfather Richard – since 1951. In her media appearances Katharina Wagner has clearly shown she doesn’t lack ambition, and her first directing work at the festival (and only her fifth independent directing project overall) is not lacking in ambition either. But does ambition alone suffice to stage a coherent performance of Wagner’s monumental comedy?

Katharina Wagner and her set designer Tilo Steffens locate the first two acts in a spacious school auditorium. Peter Konwitschny‘s Hamburg production of “Lohengrin” comes to mind, and the hunch is proved right again and again that Wagner’s great granddaughter – how could it be otherwise – must have seen a good many Wagner productions by now. The school – with galeries on the side and rooms at the back – is clearly an academy for music, theatre and dance: a sombre, ugly building.

The masters of the opera are teachers. They sit at cumbersome tables wearing doctors’ caps and gowns – except for the chain-smoking shoemaker Hans Sachs, who appears barefoot in a black shirt. Eva and Magdalene (Carola Guber) appear as childish twin sisters in prudish grey (costumes by Michaela Barth), while the apprentice David busies himself at a photocopier. And this is where the young squire Stolzing is supposed to sing? This lanky boor who mixes up the house rules even while the masters are explaining them? more…

20th-Century Literary Genres in a Nutshell: Part 3

Here is the third segment of a short list of literary schools and movements defining the content and styles of novelists, poets, and dramatists who have flourished in the past 100 years.

Ingmar Bergman – The Seventh Seal