Oh Dear
[Note: This post has been updated (2) as of 11:23 AM Eastern on 21 Oct. See below.]
This is not encouraging:
The composer's [Richard Wagner's] great-granddaughter, 30-year-old Katharina Wagner, has a lot on her plate. She has just taken over the Bayreuth opera festival, together with her half-sister Eva Wagner-Pasquier, winning a drawn-out power struggle with her cousin [Nike Wagner]. At the premiere of her uninspiring "Rienzi" in Bremen on Oct. 11, it was easy to imagine that all this had distracted her.Set in 14th-century Rome, "Rienzi" is an epic seven-hour drama describing the rise and fall of a populist leader whose power goes to his head. He promises peace and delivers bloodshed, until finally the people turn against him. Later in life, the composer himself was a little embarrassed about the work which made him famous overnight (he was 29 when he conducted the premiere in Dresden in 1842.) Katharina has thankfully given us a four-hour version. It still feels long.
She has also turned it from drama to farce, especially the first two acts. Megalomania becomes vanity, violence becomes impudence in her interpretation. Rienzi is a preening, prancing, buffoonish showman, a media politician with a penchant for kitsch and an out-of-control ego. Part Liberace, part Silvio Berlusconi.
But, then, we hardly expected anything more — or different — of Katharina.
RTWT here.
Update (9:16 PM Eastern on 13 Oct): Different voice; same assessment.
Update 2 (11:23 AM Eastern on 21 Oct): And yet another voice, but essentially the same assessment if more kindly put.
