The glorious elitism of Glyndebourne
There is nowhere in May more beautiful than England with the hawthorn out, the clear light and a thousand shades of green. And there is nowhere more beautiful in England than Glyndebourne, the Sussex opera house between the Downs and the coast.
Every visit to the ancestral pile of the Christie family brings joy and we lucky folk who caught the new production of Parsifal were granted double rations. Wagner's final music drama is a first for Glyndebourne and completes a triptych of the Master's late work, following productions of Tristan und Isolde and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. As Larkin wrote of Sidney Bechet: 'Oh play that thing!'
Music-lovers have been coming to this blessed plot of land outside Lewes since 1934 when John Christie invited three refugees from Germany to establish a shrine to Mozart.
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Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE X Factor's Wagner exposes 'fakery' on controversial talent show: 'Nothing you saw on TV was real'
X Factor star Wagner has claimed that the controversial ITV talent show was 'scripted' and that 'nothing viewers saw was real'. The singer, 69, reached the quarter-finals of the show in 2010 in a season that was won by Matt Cardle and also spawned chart-topping boyband One Direction. In an exclusive interview with MailOnline, Wagner has lifted the lid on went down behind the scenes, confessing he had hardly any contact with his mentor Louis Walsh and insisting producers pulled all the strings. 'The judges are actors', he claimed. 'It was a reality TV show but nothing is real... Everything is planned in advance and my contact with Louis was just the for cameras.' Insisting that the vocal coaches had more of a mentor than the judges, he went on: 'So yeah, I never had much contact with Louis, but I must say he was pleasant every time I met him.' From A-list scandals and red carpet mishaps to exclusive pictures and viral moments, subscribe to the Daily Mail's new Showbiz newsletter to stay in the loop. Wagner continued: 'I don't think the judges even got to choose the songs. I'm sure the producers would pick the songs for us.' He added that the judges' feedback also wasn't genuine, claiming the vocal coaches would give feedback to producers so they could script the televised interactions... 'They [the judges] would look at the camera, but every now and then they would look away and read the script. Some would look more than others!' He mused: 'The show couldn't trust the "judges", everybody became a judge! At first it was that image of Simon Cowell, Louis Walsh and Sharon Osbourne were "experts in music", but then all of a sudden everybody was in and everybody became judges... 'The script was to make sure the entertainment would keep going because they couldn't rely on the judges to be witty or quick thinking.' When wildcard Wagner appeared on the show, critics of The X Factor staged an internet campaign for him to win the show, saying they should vote to keep him in to 'p**s off' Simon Cowell. Yet ultimately, he was was eliminated in sixth place after a unanimous vote by judges in a sing-off against Mary Byrne. At the time, Simon suggested that an internet campaign to 'derail' the show by making him the unlikely winner had failed. 'There were people out there trying to derail this show,' he said after Wagner's exit. 'We've put this show back in the hands of the public.' Discussing the show, Wagner mused: 'It's not democracy, it's showbusiness. 'They knew that they wanted to promote One Direction and everybody else were just extras in the play. 'All I know is that on the day that was sent home a girl from merchandizing said that I was the only one who had sold all my merchandise. 'She said that I was at the top of the votes and One Direction was behind me - and then I was eliminated!' There is no suggestion that the vote was rigged. Wagner also revealed that Louis faked interactions between the pair. In every episode, Louis kept mispronouncing his name, saying it like Wag-nah rather than the correct Vawg-ner. 'It was a joke that Louis agreed with me!' Wagner explained. 'He said "I'm gonna call you Wagner all the time and you're gonna say Louis, my name is Vawg-ner." 'That was fun and it was Louis's idea. It was smart.' Created by Simon in 2004, The X Factor helped to launch the careers of some of the UK's biggest stars, including Little Mix, Olly Mursand Alexanra Burke. But behind closed doors, the ITV show was far from a rosy experience for many of its contestants, with some claiming that bosses convinced them to fake certain moments in a bid to boost ratings. While the series pulled in a record 18 million viewers at its peak, in later years it came under fire for manufacturing results and storylines, and was quietly placed on hiatus in 2018. Despite not winning The X Factor, Wagner still managed to cash in on his fame, selling personalised videos to fans. 'From the videos I would get £100,000 a year,' he revealed. 'I used to make an average of £2,000 a week just on videos. So that was good.' Yet when sales dropped, Wagner ended up trying out a new business, briefly owning a hair transplant clinic in his native Brazil. But it wasn't a role he enjoyed and Wagner ended up returning to the UK where he started his band: Kings With Wings: The Wagner Rock Band - a name he says is inspired by his love of birdwatching. 'I got lots of bookings but I felt so awkward singing She Bangs, because my God, that is a stupid song but people love it,' he explained. 'I sang She Bangs wherever I went. But with the band I'm having my own repertoire. I'm singing great songs, Jumping Jack Flash, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley... 'And there's nothing like singing with musicians instead of singing to backing tracks.'
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE X Factor's Wagner opens up about 'feud' with Louis Walsh, his pet lion and getting death threats from PUTIN - 15 years after he and his bongos became a national treasure
It's been 15 years since Wagner burst onto screens in series seven of The X Factor. The moustachioed Brazilian with his distinctive thick accent, long locks that would whip around around the stage, and a passion for percussion, became an instant fan favourite, with millions tuning in every week to see what he would do next. Love him or hate him, no one could turn away when he belted out his rendition of She Bangs / Love Shack, but sadly his X Factor journey came to an end when he was booted out in the quarter-finals in a double elimination with Katie Waissel. While it's been more than a decade since he starred on the show, Wagner's legacy lives on and the Mail's offices are abuzz when he comes in. One of my colleagues is keen to get a picture because she dressed up as him for a fancy dress party. Another wants a video message because she used to have Wagner as her Facebook profile photo. Indeed, I too am intrigued to meet the man behind the bongos. And I can now say that in real life, he is exactly the same eccentric and chaotic star the nation fell in love with on screen. From A-list scandals and red carpet mishaps to exclusive pictures and viral moments, subscribe to the Daily Mail's new Showbiz newsletter to stay in the loop. He's an hour late because 'the train doors closed in my face!' he exclaims at me. He's upset about his journey too, because there was nowhere to sit on the train. He's also spent the morning on the phone with his bank disputing an electricity bill charge. So it takes some time to settle him down. Once inside the studio, he's more than happy to reminisce about his glory days on The X Factor but admits he hasn't kept in touch with any of his fellow contestants, which included the likes of Katie Waissel, Cher Lloyd and One Direction. 'We were not friends before we were on The X Factor,' Wagner, 69, muses. 'We became acquaintances, perhaps friends, but we have different lives and everybody followed their own path.' Surely though he's had some contact with Louis Walsh - his mentor on the show - who famously had a fiery relationship with the star. Initially Louis dumped Wagner at Judges' Houses; then brought him back as a wildcard; refused to learn how to pronounce his name; then voted against him in the sing-off, ultimately sending him home. 'The judges were actors', Wagner insists. 'Everything is planned in advance and my contact with Louis was just the for cameras. 'So yeah, I never had much contact with Louis, but I must say he was pleasant every time I met him.' Wagner is happy to reminisce about his glory days on The X Factor but admits he hasn't kept in touch with any of his fellow contestants, which included the likes of One Direction That must explain, I muse, why Louis kept mispronouncing his name, saying it like Wag-nah rather than the correct Vawg-ner. Not the case, Wagner reveals. 'It was a joke that Louis agreed with me!' he explains. 'He said "I'm gonna call you Wagner all the time and you're gonna say Louis, my name is Vawg-ner." 'That was fun and it was Louis's idea. It was smart.' Another story that created headlines when he was on the show, was the news that he once owned a pet lion. It was said that Wagner, who now lives in West Midlands, owned the creature back in his native Brazil. A throwback picture of the star wearing swimming trunks while holding the big cat's tail on a beach went viral. Now, however, Wagner admits the lion wasn't actually his. 'It belonged to a lady friend,' he explains. 'But now I don't have any pride in it anymore. 'Years later I came to the conclusion that for my lady friend to have the lion cub that meant that poachers must have killed his mother. 'So before I used to be proud but now I'm not proud anymore.' With the topic of poachers threatening to bring down the atmosphere, I'm keen to move subject of conversation onto something more light-hearted. So, I ask, whatever happened to his OnlyFans business? Wagner sent the internet into meltdown in 2023 when he announced he would be joining the X-rated subscription site and charging £8 a month for racy content with 'nothing off limits'. Yet after shocking fans with a near nude snap to promote his work, 'Daddy Wagner' as he called himself in his bio, shut down the account after just four stunts. 'That was just a publicity stunt,' he admits. 'I was never fully naked there. I always had my bits covered.' Wagner sent the internet into meltdown in 2023 when he announced he would be joining the X-rated subscription site and charging £8 a month for racy content with 'nothing off limits'. Another publicity stunt, he confesses, was his claims that he feared being assassinated by the Kremlin. In 2023 he shared his fears he will be assassinated after getting death threats from people confusing him with the Russian mercenary group with the same name. Wagner said ever since the Wagner mercenary group launched its assault on Moscow, he had received messages threatening to cut of his testicles and those of 'his troops'. He also said he thought the Kremlin was 'hacking' his website and mobile phone as he had noticed 'changes' on his devices. But the singer added he was 'ready for them' and he would use his 'black belt in karate' to 'take on and defeat any Russian assassins'. 'It was a silly thing... a joke', he reveals. 'Putin knows very well damn well who who the real Wagner was... that was only gibberish.' For now, Wagner is writing a sitcom about a Brazilian man who accidentally books himself in to see a prostitute rather than a physiotherapist - with chaos ensuing. He hasn't abandoned music, however, and is the frontman of Kings With Wings: The Wagner Rock Band - a name he says is inspired by his love of birdwatching. 'I got lots of bookings but I felt so awkward singing She Bangs, because my God, that is a stupid song but people love it,' he explains. 'I sang She Bangs wherever I went. But with the band I'm having my own repertoire. I'm singing great songs, Jumping Jack Flash, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley... 'And there's nothing like singing with musicians instead of singing to backing tracks.' So while The X Factor itself may now be a distant memory, for Wagner and his bongos, his legacy lives on.
Spectator
6 days ago
- Spectator
Sincere, serious and beautiful: Glyndebourne's Parsifal reviewed
'Here time becomes space,' says Gurnemanz in Act One of Parsifal, and true enough, the end of the new Glyndebourne Parsifal is in its beginning. We don't know that, at first: the sickbed image that's glimpsed during the prelude doesn't resolve itself until the opera's closing scenes. In between, characters appear on stage in multiple forms, at different ages – past and future selves attendant on the present, whatever 'present' means in Monsalvat. Wagner, after all, makes it clear enough that time in the Grail Domain moves in mysterious ways, and his whole musical strategy reinforces that truth. So I can't get too upset about those multiple personas, even though the presence of miming doppelgangers in an opera production is typically one of the most damaging of gimmicks. In this case, though, and in this opera – well, to quote Gurnemanz again: you see, it is not so. The director Jetske Mijnssen manages the interaction between the figures on stage in thoughtful and expressive ways, finding a language for what she evidently sees as the true subject of the drama: the awakening of compassion between a group of damaged, all-too-human characters. The deliberate pace of Wagner's score allows the visual puzzles to disclose their meaning over time. Whatever else this is, it's a sincere and serious attempt to make sense of a work that asks far more questions than it answers. Visually, it's handsome – in Ben Baur's designs the Grail dwells amid the dark wood and sombre drapes of a 19th-century mansion. By Act Three, decay (or if you prefer, liberation) has set in; Kundry (Kristina Stanek) has shed her Victorian frock and an altarpiece of Christ has been turned to the wall.
