Wolfgang Wagner longtime Bayreuth executive dies
March 22, 2010, 3:20 AM EST
BERLIN (AP) -- Wolfgang Wagner, the grandson of composer Richard Wagner and the personality of the Bayreuth show authorised holiday for some-more than half a century, has died, the authorised holiday said. He was 90.
Wagner died on Sunday, the authorised holiday pronounced in a short matter on the Web site. It did not give serve details.
"Wolfgang Wagner dedicated his total hold up to the bequest of his grandfather," the authorised holiday pronounced — adding that his prolonged use as the event"s personality equates to that he "goes in to story as the longest-serving executive in the world.
Wagner stepped down after the 2008 authorised holiday following a extensive energy onslaught in that the primogenitor prolonged resisted efforts to chase him.
He had led the authorised holiday dedicated to his grandfather"s functions given 1951, initial with his brother, Wieland, and afterwards as the solitary executive — with a lifetime contract.
His insistence on portion out that stipulate led in his after years to clashes with officials who manage the eventuality — hold each summer in the Bavarian locale of Bayreuth in the small section drama built by Richard Wagner in the 1870s.
It additionally triggered a squabble inside of the Wagner family that itself was estimable of opera.
For years, Wolfgang Wagner insisted that usually his second wife, Gudrun, could reinstate him, nonetheless German supervision officials and others overseeing the authorised holiday refused to accept her.
By the time Gudrun died in Nov 2007, Wagner was insisting that usually the couple"s daughter, Katharina, could fill his boots — putting him at contingency with dual alternative Wagners who additionally sought the job.
Wolfgang eventually concluded to step in reserve in 2008; Katharina and Wolfgang"s long-estranged daughter from his initial marriage, Eva Wagner-Pasquier, teamed up to kick out a opposition bid from their cousin. They took assign last year.
Born on Aug. 30, 1919 in Bayreuth, Wagner complicated the wail and French horn prior to being sent to quarrel on the eastern front early in World War II. In 1939, he was exceedingly bleeding and sent behind to Berlin.
He initial took assign of the authorised holiday — along with his brother, Wieland — in 1951, reviving the eventuality that had been stopped by the war.
The span worked to revive the tarnished name, with Wolfgang Wagner concentrating on classification and finance management of the festival. He founded the "Society of Friends of Bayreuth" to accept donations and won supervision support.
Following Wieland"s genocide from cancer in 1966, Wolfgang took over as solitary director.
In serve to augmenting the appropriation and substantiating a apart substructure to manage the composer"s library, Wagner additionally invited directors from abroad to approach particular operas.
While majority of the versions sparked debate at the time, they were mostly groundbreaking interpretations of Richard Wagner"s operas, in keeping with Wolfgang"s thought of broadening their definition by emphasizing their concept human context.
His own productions, together with "Lohengrin" in 1953 and his second "Parsifal" in 1989, reflected this. Wagner remarked in 1957, that the "human, the Wagnerian being" was the majority critical component of his own productions.
The Wagner family"s close connectors to the Nazis and their beliefs were a repeated thesis during Wolfgang"s tenure.
In 1997 his disloyal son, Gottfried, published a book on the issue accusing his father of unwell to forgo the destructive anti-Semitism of Wolfgang"s mother, Winifred, a intense suitor of Adolf Hitler who headed the Bayreuth authorised holiday underneath the Nazis in the 1930s. During her reign, Hitler not usually helped account the festival, but was authorised to happen in inventive decisions.
Wolfgang Wagner laid open the book as "one-sided" and "primitive" and criminialized Gottfried — one of dual young kids from his matrimony to his initial wife, Ellen — from the family home.
Its announcement came at a time when Wagner was additionally underneath vigour from Wieland"s daughter, Nike Wagner, who criticized what she called her uncle"s "monarchic" care style.
In May 1999, Wagner himself instituted the routine to find his deputy — but when the German supervision launched a open contention over appropriation for the festival, the afterwards 80-year-old executive pronounced he could not step down until the authorised and monetary destiny of the authorised holiday had been secured.
After multiform tip artists refused to experience in the 2000 festival, authorised holiday house members declared Eva Wagner-Pasquier as the new director, but Wagner refused to step down, insisting on the hold up tenure in his contract. He hold on to energy for a serve eight years.
Wagner is survived by his 3 children. There was no evident word on wake arrangements.
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