Monday, 1 October 2007

Eva Wagner-Pasquier breaks the silence in episode 7 of "The Bayreuth succession"

Previous episodes of mostly opera´s highly successful Wagnerian docu-soap may be read here, and for new readers the background of this unique Wagnerian docu-soap is written up here.

Episode 7 presents the first interview with Eva Wagner-Pasquier given to the magazine "Bunte":

“I do not feel too old or over my zenith at all. I am intellectually challenged every day and I am ready. But this time, the Festival Director should resign and not invoke his life-time contract if he doesn´t agree with the Board of Directors choice. What happened in 2001 should not be repeated [background on what happened in 2001 here]. The resolution from 2001 [to put her in charge of the Festival] however, is still valid, in principle."

Furthermore, she doesn´t think her father´s life-time contract valid anymore:
"It expired in my opinion, because my father does not lead the Festival alone any longer, which is clear to everyone and also public knowledge...I find it a humiliating end to my father´s otherwise valuable work for him to be used like that.....My goal is to celebrate Wagner´s 200-year in 2013 - a great challenge."

On Katharina Wagner:

"I have only met her twice - briefly....I find it inconceivable to run the Bayreuth Festival with Katharina - not possible in any way. It would be better for her to collect some years of experience after such a vertical take-off [after the Meistersinger debut in Bayreuth]. She is only 29 and has enough time. Furthermore, my younger sister will have to rid herself from suspicion that she is controlled by her mother.”

On her personal relationship with Wolfgang and Gudrun Wagner:

Eva W-P would still like to meet her father again [after 6 years]. If she could still love him?
"It is difficult if you cannot get into the fortress where he sits"...
“I regret that she [Gudrun Wagner, her stepmother] from the outset actively worked towards the alienation of a father from his children from first marriage.” Eva W-P and her brother Gottfried were kicked out from their home in Bayreuth 1976 from one day to the next. “I felt offended. That hurt me very much and destroyed our poor mother. You need years to get over something like that.”

And finally:

"It disturbs me that the image of the Wagner family has most of all become like a Soap Opera."

[Just wondering:
If becoming a Soap Opera figure concerns Eva W-P, then why did she chose a notoriously unreliable tabloid like Bunte (just look at their front page) to bring forward her version of the story]...

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