Surprise secrets: Katharina Wagner presents 'Lohengrin' with a twist

Euronews

15-03-2025

Living with the name Wagner is both a blessing and a curse at times, admits the great-granddaughter of the German composer.
Katharina Wagner says she has learnt to live with the positives and the negatives of her famous forebear.
A renowned artistic director in her own right, Wagner will present 'Lohengrin' at Barcelona's Teatre Liceu from 17 -30 March.
The romantic opera tells the story of the eponymous character and is taken from medieval German romance. A mysterious knight arrives in a boat drawn by a swan to help Elsa von Brabant, a noble in distress. He marries her, but forbids her to ask about his origin; she later forgets this promise and he leaves her, never to return.
The work is best known for its prelude, the so-called Bridal Chorus, which is often used at weddings, and the Grail Narrative. Lohengrin is the main protagonist, but Elsa also has a strong character.
Wagner's Barcelona production will have a surprise twist to this story, but Euronews Culture has been sworn to secrecy....
The opera was first performed in 1850, although Wagner himself was unable to attend due to being exiled for taking part in the May Rebellion of Dresden, one of the last of a series of uprisings that took place across Europe in 1848.
The composer finally saw a full performance in 1861. Today, his great granddaughter believes the opera retains much of its original charm over 150 years later. 'It's very dear to many people. You can tell it as a fairy tale where the hero just appears. But for us, this man appears for a special reason,' Katharina tells Euronews Culture at her office inside the Teatre Liceu.
'He says, well, don't ask me who I am and don't ask me where I come from. And this is strange, isn't it? And it's an opera about trust as well, but it's very strange that you shouldn't ask. Who is this man? Where does he come from? What is his plan?'
The artistic director has many favourites among her great-grandfather's large number of compositions: 'It depends on my personal mood. I really enjoy Tristan and Isolde and, of course, Parsifal. I think both are magnificently composed with wonderful music."
Opera lovers will know Wagner's masterpieces well, but many will also be familiar with the composer's work from films such as Apocalypse Now, which features the famous Ride of the Valkyries.
'Often I am told that Wagner is considered the composer who wrote long operas. I hope that more people try to go and see an opera because it's something special," Katharina says.
The 46-year-old is the artistic director of the Bayreuth Festival, the annual celebration of her great-grandfather's music. She also lives in the German town, which is devoted to the memory of the composer.
Next year will mark the 150th anniversary of the festival and it promises to be a special occasion. For the first time, Rienzi will be performed at Bayreuth. The Ring Cycle conducted by Christian Thielemann will be another highlight.
The celebrations will start with Beethoven's 9th Symphony. When asked about the Wagner name, Katharina says it is a double-edged sword: 'The problem is, if you're born into that family, you can't choose it. Sometimes of course it's a blessing, and sometimes it's a curse." Of course, the Wagner name has brought criticism for the composer's well-known antisemitism and his most infamous admirer, Adolf Hitler.
In 2009, Katharina stated that there was an obligation to deal with the family's connections to the Nazis. She said her personal and some other private archives of members of her family would be open to scrutiny. Unfortunately, there are still private archives of other family members which are not available for the public.
In 1850, Wagner wrote an article called Judaism in Music, which was perceived to be antisemitic. Adolf Hitler supported the Bayreuth Festival and befriended Winifred Wagner, the British-born wife of the composer's son Siegfried. This connection allowed the festival to remain largely independent during the Third Reich. After the war, Winifred Wagner was convicted of supporting the Nazis.
'Richard Wagner wrote horrible essays about Jewish people. Of course, I do not align with those views," Katharina says, who does not shy away from confronting her family's dark past: 'No, i'm not [reluctant to confront the past] because it's important. I'm absolutely not tired of it. No. And I know that parts of my family are also not tired of that,' she says.
Returning to the music, Katharina truly delights in directing opera: 'You have to enjoy your profession. I do. Well, to be honest, the most interesting thing for me personally as a director is when I, or another director, talk about the concept for the first time in a small group," she explains with a smile.
"And then, at the end of the day, every little detail, every little building block comes together and you develop the stage together. Then comes the direction, the singers, the lighting and the costumes. And that's a wonderful moment. And working together on stage is, I think, one of the best moments in this job.'
'Lohengrin' by Richard Wagner, Gran Teatre Liceu Barcelona March 17-30
The Gutenberg Bible from the Diocesan Museum in Pelpin is one of the most valuable and interesting preserved volumes in the world. In 1502, it was donated by Nicolaus Crapitz, the bishop of Warmia, to the Franciscan Reformed Convent in Lubawa, where it stayed until the 19th century. After the dissolution of that convent, it was placed in the Library of the Seminary in Pelpli.
Now, the priceless book, and one of the earliest works of the famed printer Gutenberg, is on show in Warsaw. Aside from being complete, with both of its volumes intact, its value stems from the fact that nearly all of its pages remain. It also possesses the original 15th-century binding.
Despite being printed several hundreds of years ago, the book has contributed to modern historical discoveries. It was thanks to a minor technical defect on one of the pages of the first volume that researchers were able to discover more about Gutenberg's process. They determined that the mistake was made due to a shape in the font falling out of the mounting. Thus, new discoveries surrounding the movable type, arguably one of the most important inventions, were able to be made.
'The idea itself [of movable type] was extremely innovative, because it allowed printing many identical copies of a book in a very short time. The use of movable type allowed the printing technique to be disseminated in Europe, which is why this innovation by Johannes Gutenberg is considered a great breakthrough. Nevertheless, it should be remembered that in 15th-century Europe, people were eager to print, print pictures, and print books, but not from movable type,' says Marcin Bogusz, curator of the exhibition.
Fate, however, was not always kind to the ancient book, despite its fame and international value. In the face of the war threat in 1939, the book was taken to Canada via Warsaw, Paris and Great Britain.
"It was taken to Canada, where it was deposited in a bank, and waited together with other objects most important for Polish culture and history, such as the manuscript of Gallus Anonymus' chronicle or royal regalia, until the end of the 1950s, when it was sent back to Poland," Bogusz adds.
It returned to Poland in 1959, but before it was brought back to Pelplin, where it originated, it was put on display for several days at the National Museum in Warsaw.
In order to take care of the unique work, the presentation of the Gutenberg Bible required careful preparation. The bulletproof, air-conditioned display case maintains the appropriate conditions for the work: a temperature of approx. 20-23°C and relative humidity below 45-55%.
'Thanks to this, the most delicate substrate, which is paper, performs well and does not suffer,' explains curator Marcin Bogusz.
There are also restrictions to the way in which the book can be illuminated. The Bible can be exhibited for no more than 60 days a year, with only a small amount of artificial light - and away from the harmful UV radiation of the sun.
Pages rich in handwritten elements are particularly sensitive to light. Thanks to the efforts of art conservators, all these requirements allow experts to preserve this unique monument of European culture for future generations.
The Bible display is accompanied by a thematic walking tour path devoted to the late medieval culture of writing and printed books. The walk will lead visitors along the path of painted and sculptural representations of books, people reading or writing, as well as inscriptions of various forms and functions.
Images of people with codices in their hands and inscriptions on medieval paintings are meant to help visitors realize how important a book was at that time.
But aside from influencing the way we consume books, writing, and media, the Gutenberg Bible also had an impact on important trends in the visual arts. Artists at the time also used prints, then a modern invention, in order to create their own works.
'Although it was accepted that in old workshops artists created compositions themselves, a normal practice in old art, quite popular and common, was for artists to reach for copperplate or woodcut images, which they copied in their works. This extraordinary popularity of copperplate engravings by Martin Schongauer or Albrecht Dürer shows us how incredibly popular printing was at the turn of the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance,' emphasizes the curator.
The monuments in the Medieval Gallery that have been influenced by Gutenberg's work have been marked with a special symbol.
Visitors familiar with the other works in the gallery can now see the impact of the precious book on countless other creations of the time period.