“I really want the festival to take place in 2021,” says Katharina Wagner.
And announces top-class things for it.
Queen Elizabeth once spoke of the "annus horribilis".
Katharina Wagner has had such a terrible year.
In spring she developed life-threatening multiple thromboses and a pulmonary embolism.
The Bayreuth Festival director was in a coma for weeks.
In addition, the festival had to be canceled due to the pandemic.
The 42-year-old has been back at her desk since autumn and is full of energy.
According to the current planning, the festival is to open on July 25, 2021 with a new production of the "Flying Dutchman".
How are you?
Fortunately, very well.
Everything is perfectly fine.
A lot of personal work was required.
You just have to do something so that you can almost fully restore yourself.
I've been working again since mid-September.
I am not only cured, but really healthy.
Do you think differently about the festival after such a severe personal crisis? What did you take away from this time?
Even if it sounds simple: that you have to be grateful when you are healthy.
Funnily enough, as a healthy person one never fully realizes what it means to be without illness.
Such a crisis teaches you to appreciate what health is actually worth.
Basically more than anything.
There is nothing to pay for it.
Otherwise, I'm completely busy planning the festival for the coming summer.
I really want it to happen.
Right now we have to send a positive signal that things are going on and on.
All those involved, including the shareholders, have the absolute will that they are carried out.
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Asmik Grigorian sings Senta in the new “Fliegende Holländer”.
© Algirdas Bakas
Your schedule should actually be announced in December. When will it be so far - and what does it look like?
I assume that we will publish everything at the end of January.
However, I can reveal a few details.
“Lohengrin”, as we already know, will pause for a year and only resume in 2022.
We are planning three concerts for this coming summer.
Unfortunately, I cannot reveal the conductor and the program yet.
We have a top-class cast for the new production of the "Flying Dutchman".
Asmik Grigorian will sing Senta, John Lundgren the Dutchman, Georg Zeppenfeld the Daland and Eric Cutler the Erik.
And with Oksana Lyniv, for the first time, a female conductor will stand at the podium of the festival orchestra.
Dmitri Tcherniakov will direct.
That should all be very exciting.
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Nikolaus Habjan develops his own "Rheingold" version.
© Wilfried Hösl
It is said that you are also showing a Wagner opera as a “performance”. What does this mean?
I didn't want to start the “Walküre” in concert.
This special version has nothing to do with the director Valentin Schwarz, he will show his "Ring des Nibelungen" for the first time in 2022 - two years later than originally planned.
The late date is necessary because we have to put in a rehearsal phase for the “Ring” next summer.
We also wanted to stick with the Bayreuth specialty that the "Ring" is brought out completely.
That is why a performance artist will take on the “Valkyrie” at the next festival.
There are also a few other items on the program on the subject of the "Ring".
For example, there will be a “Rheingold” treatment at the pond in the festival park below the house in a concept and realization by the puppet artist Nikolaus Habjan.
The composer Gordon Kampe wrote a version for it that he will conduct.
We also want to offer something about “Siegfried” and “Götterdämmerung”.
In that sense, it will not be a completely "ring" -less year.
How many performances do you then offer in total?
According to previous planning and including the three concerts, there will be 25 dates.
We have 28 on average, so that is a respectable number in view of the current difficult overall situation.
Your music director Christian Thielemann's contract will expire at the end of 2020. Why has it not been extended yet?
Because we just have to redesign this contract.
The old one can no longer be fulfilled due to other obligations of Mr. Thielemann.
That's why the festival wants to create a new agreement with him.
Since everything failed in 2020 due to the Corona and this had massive dispositional consequences, both Christian Thielemann and I were of the opinion that we should first take care of the 2021 season.
This has absolute priority.
The new contract with the precise definition of the tasks was initially of secondary importance.
Despite all the conspiracy theorists, there is no rift or anything like that.
Salzburg is holding back part of the ticket contingents because it is not yet known how 2021 will develop. How does Bayreuth act? You sit even closer in your Festspielhaus.
That's right.
We have to wait for the development and the respective current regulations.
I assume that we will only sell some of the tickets.
We are currently anticipating 200 seats per performance in our almost 2000-seat house.
The basis of this assumption was the audience limit that applied in Bavaria for a while, apart from the pilot tests at the Bavarian State Opera, at Gasteig and in the Nuremberg Meistersingerhalle with 500 visitors each.
We don't start the advance booking as early as usual, normally it would have started long ago.
Salzburg's director Markus Hinterhäuser told our newspaper that his festival would not get through another season like 2020 - although many events were taking place. And Bayreuth? After all, there was nothing there in 2020.
Let's put it this way: by making the decision relatively early to cancel the season, we were able to avert a financial disaster.
The fewer spectators allowed in the house in 2021, the more problematic it will be, that is very clear.
So we all hope that there will be more than 200 next summer.
Minister of State for Culture Monika Grütters has just announced that she wants to shake up Bayreuth's organizational structure. The federal government is one of the big shareholders. Was this a surprise for you?
No not at all.
The problem has been on the table for years that we in Bayreuth sometimes have to work with very outdated structures.
I am very grateful to the Minister of State for Culture for taking on this problem during this difficult time in which she has many other problems to solve and for enabling the festival with its many employees to work efficiently and in keeping with the times at the highest artistic level.
The interview was conducted by Markus Thiel.