Enlarge image
Festspielhaus in Bayreuth: Much is still in the dark regarding the alleged attacks
Photo:
Daniel Vogl / dpa
Last week, the "Nordbayerischer Kurier" published physical assaults on women, insults and sexist slogans on the Green Hill.
As the "Süddeutsche Zeitung" now reports, the public prosecutor's office is also investigating in the context of the Richard Wagner Festival: A procedure has been initiated, said the deputy spokesman for the authority.
It is about the allegation of sexual harassment.
The reporting "very moved and actually surprised the festival management," said a spokesman for the festival last week.
Should the allegations prove true, immediate personal consequences would follow.
Much is still in the dark about the alleged assaults: Festival director Katharina Wagner reported in interviews after the Kurier report that she herself had experienced “sexual innuendos and, in some cases, assaults in a certain way”.
"But I knew how to defend myself," she said.
So far, however, Wagner has not been more specific.
The former music director of the festival, Christian Thielemann, was also criticized for his tone.
He is said to have yelled at and insulted musicians – an accusation that the star conductor vehemently rejects: “There is nothing to it,” he told the German Press Agency and spoke of a “misunderstanding”.
The chairman of the board of directors of the festival, Georg von Waldenfels, also defended Thielemann at a press conference over the weekend.
In essence, it is about the fact that certain of Thielemann's statements were not meant to be misogynist, but were made in a different context.
Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth had already commented on the report by the "Nordbayerischer Kurier" last week: "I assume that the management of the Bayreuth Festival will investigate the events with vigor and draw the necessary conclusions.
Sexual assaults, whether verbal or physical, are absolutely unacceptable and must not go unpunished," Roth said on Friday in Berlin.
The Bayreuth Festival began on Monday with a new production of "Tristan und Isolde".
eth/dpa