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Clouds Over Wagner's Green Hill at Famed Bayreuth Festival

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Clouds Over Wagner's Green Hill at Famed Bayreuth Festival lifestyle THURSDAY, JULY 24, 2014 Music & Movies Picture taken on July 25, 2011 shows workers rolling out the red carpet in front of the festival house on the ‘Green Hill’ prior to the Bayreuth music festi- Katharina Wagner and Eva Wagner-Pasquier, great-granddaughters of German composer val in Bayreuth, southern Germany. — AFP photos Richard Wagner and current managers of the Bayreuth music festival, during a state reception in Bayreuth, southern Germany. Clouds over Wagner’s Green Hill at famed Bayreuth Festival he curtain goes up on the Bayreuth Festival on Friday, straight away. In fact, there were still some unsold tickets for ics and audiences alike. And the current production of And the Festspielhaus theatre built to Wagner’s own but observers say the prestigious month-long summer one of the performances of the sprawling four-opera “Ring” “Tannhaeuser” by Sebastian Baumgarten-chosen for this year’s designs was clad in scaffolding to prevent crumbling brickwork Tmusic fest dedicated to the works of Richard Wagner cycle next week. opening night-has been almost unanimously vilified ever since from falling and injuring passers-by. That work is also expected could be losing some of its shine. Detractors say that under its it first premiered in 2011. In an interview in this week’s Der to take many years to complete. Compounding such image current management-Wagner’s great-granddaughters Unpopular choice of directors Spiegel magazine, Castorf accused Katharina and Eva of treat- problems was an announcement earlier this month that Katharina Wagner and Eva Wagner-Pasquier, who took over in Critics point the finger at the artistic choices made by ing him like an “idiot” and ruling over the festival with an Chancellor Angela Merkel-an ardent Wagnerian and hitherto 2009 — the festival is on its way downhill. Fans of the late Katharina and Eva. Last year, for example, for Wagner’s atmosphere of fear and intimidation familiar from communist faithful visitor to the festival-will not be attending the glitzy German composer already joke that the best Wagner singers Bicentenary, the self-styled enfant terrible of German theatre, East Germany where he grew up. opening gala for the first time in 10 years. can be heard anywhere but in Bayreuth. But the perceived Frank Castorf, was picked to direct a brand-new production of Castorf even hinted at a possible legal battle, saying he had A “diary clash” is the official reason for her absence and festi- drop in artistic standards may now be starting to hit ticket the “Ring”. Hired for the project at very short notice after the taken the prominent left-wing politician and lawyer, Gregor val spokesman Peter Emmerich insists Merkel will turn up later sales-unheard of for a festival which has always prided itself on original director, filmmaker Wim Wenders, pulled out, Castorf Gysi, as an advisor. It remains to be seen whether Katharina in the season. The Bayreuth Festival opens on Friday and runs being sold out and having a waiting list for tickets stretching to with his punkish, anarchic aesthetic was bound to raise hackles will be able to turn the festival’s fortunes around once she until August 28, with a total 30 performances in all of seven dif- 10 years and more. among ultra-conservative Bayreuthers. And when he took his assumes sole control of the festival next year while Eva retires. ferent operas, “Tannhaeuser”, “The Flying Dutchman”, The highbrow daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung this curtain call at the premiere last year, he was met with more Merkel absent “Lohengrin” and the “Ring” comprising “Rhinegold”, “The week complained the festival is suffering from “artistic arte- than 15 minutes of booing, whistling and jeering for his Bayreuth’s showing for last year’s Wagner Bicentenary was Valkyrie”, “Siegfried” and “Twilight of the Gods.”— AFP riosclerosis” and was “about as exciting as stale beer”. Ever since bizarre, surreal reading setting the action in faraway places also widely criticized. The composer’s villa Wahnfried, home to Wagner’s grandsons Wolfgang and Wieland relaunched the such as Baku, Azerbaijan, and featuring prostitutes, gangsters, the Richard Wagner Museum and Archive, was effectively event after World War II, tickets to Bayreuth have been the Kalashnikov rifles and copulating crocodiles. reduced to a building site for repairs. The town’s world-famous hardest to come by in the world of opera and classical music. But their choices of directors before that have proven simi- Margravial Opera House, a baroque jewel listed as a UNESCO But this year, when a contingent of seats was made available larly unpopular. Katharina’s own recent production of “The World Heritage site, has also been closed indefinitely for reno- directly on the Internet for the first time, they did not sell out Mastersingers of Nuremberg”, for example, was panned by crit- vation. Beetles devour George Harrison tribute tree tree planted in a Los Angeles park in memory Los Angeles prior to his death in 2001. A plaque at the of the late George Harrison of the Beatles has base of the tree read: “In memory of a great humani- Abeen killed by beetles, a city councilor said tarian who touched the world as an artist, a musician Tuesday. Tom LaBonge, whose district includes Griffith and a gardener.” Park, told AFP that the Japanese black pine tree, “He died in the City of Angels, and he went straight planted about 12 years ago, would be replaced at a to the angels,” said LaBonge, who underscored community planting that is due to take place in Harrison’s charity work including the landmark November. It had grown to 12 feet (nearly four Concert for Bangladesh in 1971. This year marks the meters) in height, but succumbed to bark beetles 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ concert debut in the thriving in the vast and popular inner-city park amid United States. Ringo Starr performed in Los Angeles one of California’s worst droughts in years. with his All-Star Band last weekend. He’ll be followed “A number of trees in Griffith Park has been hit by on August 10 by Paul McCartney. — AFP this beetle,” LaBonge said. The tree stood about 300 yards (meters) from the Griffith Observatory, made This photo released by courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics shows, Colin Firth, left, as famous in the knife-fighting scene in the 1955 cult Stanley and Emma Stone as Sophie, in a scene from the film, ‘Magic in the Moonlight,’ movie “Rebel Without A Cause” starring the late James directed by Woody Allen. — AP Dean. Harrison, the Beatles’ lead guitarist as well as a chart-topping solo artist and avid gardener, lived in George Harrison Review: Allen casts a Peaches Geldof’s death limp spell in ‘Magic’ was drugs-related, coroner rules oody Allen’s late period has been sure Crawford and the lithe, charming he death of Peaches Geldof, the daugh- Twitter post was a photograph of herself and defined by a quality you wouldn’t Sophie across a vivid, widescreen backdrop ter of musician and Band Aid founder Yates together. Whave expected from the man who of cars, clothes and coastline. Crawford, TBob Geldof, was drugs-related, a coro- Peaches Geldof had been a regular on the produced the inspired chaos of “Bananas” whose fiancee hasn’t joined him on the ner ruled yesterday. The 25-year-old socialite London society scene, but gave up her party- or the Fellini-esque carnival of “Stardust trip, is both supremely confident in his real- died at her family home in Kent, southest ing lifestyle after becoming a mother. At the Memories”: tidiness. For years now, Allen’s istic worldview (Nietzsche, he says, England in April while alone with one of her time of her death she was a columnist for films have been light farces (“Midnight in resolved “the God problem rather convinc- two young sons. In May, forensic tests found Mother & Baby magazine. In her last piece, Paris,” “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”) or neatly ingly”) and abundantly unhappy. heroin in her system and puncture wounds under the headline “Being a mum is the best structured parables (“Match Point,” “Blue Audiences will surely see where the film is on her arms. thing in my life”, she wrote she was “happier Jasmine”). They breeze in innocuously in going as it sets up a quite rigidly explored Detective Chief Inspector Paul than ever”. — Reuters the summer, promising pleasant entertain- dichotomy between blithe believing and Fotheringham, who gave evidence at an ment and not much more. scientific certainty. inquest in Gravesend, Kent, yesterday said in “Like drinking lemonade” is how Allen It’s an argument for illusion in our lives, Adele a statement that drugs equipment had been has described his escapist aims for his no matter how fraudulent; for love, no mat- found near the body. He said Geldof had movies. His “Magic in the Moonlight,” a ter how illogical. “Magic in the Moonlight” recently stopped taking heroin after an addic- Peaches Geldof romantic comedy bathed in the sunset is a disbeliever’s earnest plea to believe. tion of several years, although witnesses sus- glow of the French Riviera and starring two These are, of course, ideas Allen has long British singer Adele pected that she had started taking drugs of the more effervescent faces in movies - explored, and “Magic in the Moonlight” again in February. A search of the house had Colin Firth and Emma Stone - is, no doubt, often feels like the kind of tidy New Yorker wins damages revealed a bag containing 61 percent pure sweetly sugary - if ultimately flat - stuff. humor story the filmmaker might pen.
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