Bayreuth Festival opens with scandal-hit ‘Dutchman’

FRANKFURT - Agence France-Presse

Yevgeny Nikitin pulled out from the opening show only four days before following a row over his swastika tattoo. AFP Photo

The Bayreuth Festival, an annual month-long celebration of Richard Wagner, opens Wednesday, with its new production of “The Flying Dutchman” engulfed in scandal even before the curtain rises.

Just four days before opening night, Yevgeny Nikitin, the Russian opera singer cast in the title role announced he was pulling out following a row over a Nazi tattoo he sports on his chest.

The Bayreuth Festival runs from July 25 to August 28 every year and the opening night is traditionally attended by Germany’s political and social elite. The appearance of a singer decorated with Nazi tattoos would have been a huge embarrassment for all concerned.

The scandal is also a huge headache for the festival’s organizers, who now have just four days to find a new “Dutchman.” The production’s director, Jan Philipp Gloger, warned of the “immense artistic damage” even if a replacement can be found and is able to familiarize himself with the production in time for the premiere on Wednesday.

The Bayreuth Festival, the world’s oldest summer music festival, was founded by Wagner, a notorious anti-Semite, as a showcase for his operas and he had the famous Festspielhaus theatre built to his own designs.

Wagner was Adolf Hitler’s favorite composer and after the Nazis seized power in Germany in 1933, Hitler became a regular guest at the Festspielhaus built on Bayreuth’s fabled “Green Hill”.

The Nazi dictator also became a close friend of Winifred Wagner, the widow of the composer’s son Siegfried. Hitler was affectionately called “Uncle Wolf” by her sons, Wolfgang and Wieland, who went on to reinvent and relaunch the festival after the end of World War II.

Bayreuth’s current heads, Katharina Wagner, 34, and Eva Wagner-Pasquier, 67, have pledged to open up the festival archives to independent historians to fully explore the festival’s Nazi past. But the topic remains an extremely sensitive issue.

Katharina and Eva are already under fire for what some critics say has been a decline in artistic standards at the festival. The event has always been one of the hottest tickets in the world of opera and classical music, with the waiting list running up to 10 years.

This year too, the black market for tickets - officially priced between 35-280 Euros - is flourishing more than ever.

Nevertheless, even the most dyed-in-the-wool Wagnerites have started to complain that Bayreuth may be losing some of its shine due to a string of critically panned and deeply unpopular productions. There has also, according to some observers, been a decline in vocal standards.