In death as in life, Wagner clan at war: reports
AFP
BERLIN- A memorial service for Richard Wagner's grandson Wolfgang Wagner, who died March 21 aged 90, was the scene of fresh squabbles among the composer's descendents, German newspapers reported Monday.
More than 1,000 personalities from music and politics including Chancellor Angela Merkel attended Sunday's memorial in the opera house on the famed Green Hill in Bayreuth designed by the composer himself.
A photograph of the late Wolfgang Wagner is placed next to a condolence book.
However Wolfgang Wagner's own two daughters Eva Wagner-Pasquier and Katharina Wagner, whom he nominated to run the prestigious Bayreuth festival after his death, had ringside seats with Merkel.
Wolfgang and his more talented brother Wieland jointly ran the annual Bayreuth festival dedicated to their grandfather's music in 1951. But Wieland died in 1966, allowing Wolfgang to emerge from his sibling's shadow and take sole charge.
Wolfgang sowed the seeds for a bitter internecine battle when he divorced his wife Ellen Drexel in 1976 to marry his secretary Gudrun.
Before the split, Wolfgang and Ellen's daughter Eva had been close, so much so that she came to be seen as his "right-hand man". But Eva took her mother's side and was cast out of Bayreuth.
So deep was the rift that when the festival's ruling body, the Stiftungsrat, officially named the experienced Eva as Wolfgang's successor in March 2001, the white-haired autocrat openly rubbished her abilities.
Instead, the old man favoured his daughter with Gudrun, the much younger Katharina, born in 1978.
The unexpected death of Gudrun in 2007 opened the way for a reconciliation. And instead of teaming up with her cousin Nike for a joint leadership bid as originally planned, Eva agreed to join Katharina instead.
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