Katharina's battle for Wagner's legacy

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The new production was that of Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg by Katharina Wagner, the composer's great-granddaughter. Katharina is the favourite to succeed her father, 87-year-old Wolfgang Wagner, as director of the festival and it was widely assumed that if she emerged with credit from this baptism of fire then the coronation would follow.

From the chorus of booing mixed with cheers it is impossible to say that the crown is Katharina's for the taking. To her credit she did not take the easy option - if any were available.

Given its role as a signature piece in the Third Reich and its undeniable associations with the concept of german supremacy, Die Meistersinger is one of the most problematic of all Wagner's works to stage. The great merit of Katharina Wagner's production is that in conjunction with her trusted dramaturge Robert Sollich she has shown a determination to confront that baleful legacy, and here at its very epicentre in Bayreuth.

The German intellectual tradition - Goethe, Schiller, Lessing, Wagner himself - is represented by, first, statuettes and, later, by huge masks that come to life. What is controversial is that that tradition is swept aside. It is then symbolically and terrifyingly incinerated by Hans Sachs as he sings "Wach Auf" (his wakeup call to Germany).

The singing is not on a high level.

Sachs is under-sung by Franz Hawlata. The Walther walked out citing artistic differences, leaving the role to a too light tenor, Klaus Florian Vogt. Amanda Mace, an uningratiating Eva, was cruelly booed. The only outstanding singer was Michael Volle, whose Beckmesser in this production is an intriguingly iconoclastic figure. Sebastian Weigle's brisk, efficient conducting did not allow the scores beauties to blossom.

If she does become Queen of Bayreuth, as one suspects she will, Katharina Wagner will last night have renewed the tradition of controversy that for better or worse has kept the Festspielhaus in the limelight for over a century.

Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg