Dispute over Wagner opera – “Führer”: Bayreuth catches up with brown past

To clarify, Bayreuth has a checkered history associated with the Third Reich. Adolf Hitler relaxed there privately and indulged in his artistic dreams. In addition, he was a guest for many years at the Bayreuth Festival, the sanctuary par excellence for Richard Wagner’s operas.

Hitler-Wagner Alliance
The dictator admired the artist and maintained close contact with his heirs. As early as the 1920s, the Wagners were a kind of surrogate family for him. National Socialism and the Wagners – that was an unholy alliance at the time.

“Protector” instead of “Guide”
But in the meantime times have changed. Katharina Wagner, artistic director and director of the Bayreuth Festival, wants to know nothing more about her family’s dark past. After the dress rehearsal this year, she asked the tenor Klaus Florian Vogt, who sang the title role in the opera “Lohengrin”, to replace the word “Führer” with “Schützer” at the end of the Richard Wagner opera about the Swan Knight. “It’s an ordinary replacement,” Wagner told the German news agency on Wednesday.

“A lot of houses use the word ‘Protector’ and we in Bayreuth have to be particularly sensitive because we have a special political background and therefore a special responsibility.”

“Führer” scandal
Conductor Christian Thielemann goes too far in the deletion. He also sees other works of operatic literature at risk: “Then you can no longer play ‘Tosca’ with the attempted rape, murder and so on,” he told the “Welt”.

And added: “Seeing the rigor with which this is being carried out, I would expect conservative politicians to say: let’s make sure the country is working right now before we think about what works, world literature could be rewritten. “