De Mortuis Nil Nisi Bonum

We sat down a few hours ago to make good our promise in our post announcing the death at 90 of longtime director of the Bayreuther Festspiele, Wolfgang Wagner, that there would be more on Herr Wagner to follow here on S&F, but almost immediately ran up hard against the ancient imperative, de mortuis nil nisi bonum, which stopped us dead in our tracks (NPI), so to speak. For beyond making note of the extraordinary courage, skill, and inventiveness in the face of appalling odds displayed by Wolfgang along with his brother, the brilliant theatrical director Wieland, in the postwar resurrection of the Bayreuther Festspiele in 1951, we could think of little positive to say about Wolfgang. Quite the contrary, we could think only of things of the most negative sort based entirely on the results of his work at the Festspiele during the long 40 years he maintained sole control of the festival following Wieland's untimely death in 1966 at the age of 49. And so we'll hold off expressing our thoughts on Wolfgang's career for the nonce, and wait for a more propitious and appropriate time to set them forth here. For the time being, we can say nothing better or more appropriate than to say what was said by Alex Ross, quoting from the Prologue of Götterdämmerung, in his notice of Wolfgang's death: Es riss!