'Katharina Wagner Should Be ... ’ – A Personal Reaction to Meistersinger In The Flesh

Patricia Baillie

Katharina Wagner should be ..... Or at least removed from further productions at Bayreuth...  Like other Society members I saw the woeful production of Meistersinger at the Goethe Institut.  But it wasn't until I saw it in the flesh - and there certainly was flesh – at Bayreuth this year that I took in fully how ridiculous it was. She wishes to 'modernize' Bayreuth productions.  Fine, but I do believe the action on stage should have some connection with the text and the music.  Neither was evident.  The absurd parade of composers with huge heads, including Wagner in his jockeys, doing what I can only call prancing was distracting, implausible, and simply laughable.  Meistersinger is a comedy, and we are given plenty to laugh at in the music, in the libretto and in Wagner's stage directions.  Interpretation is one thing, inane irrelevancies are another.