SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Gudrun Wagner (1944-2007) by Jim Pritchard (JPr)

Gudrun Wagner, the wife of Wolfgang Wagner died after routine surgery at a Bayreuth hospital on 28 November:she was only 63. She is shown in the photograph above (second on the right) at the opening of the 2007 Bayreuth Festival with her daughter Katharina, Angela Merkel (German Chancellor) and José Manuel Barroso (President of the European Commission).

In a statement,  Wolfgang Wagner said that ‘Deeply shaken, and in silent grief, I must announce that my beloved wife and closest colleague died this morning, completely unexpectedly.’ Wolfgang has been director of the Bayreuth Festival since 1951 - at first jointly with his brother Wieland who died in 1966 -  but his wife played a major behind-the-scenes role in recent years as his official personal consultant, mainly due to Wolfgang’s increasing frailty since he is now 88.

Wolfgang has faced calls to step aside amid the obvious concerns about his health and the feeling that the annual event on the ‘Green Hill’, still an automatic sell-out for aficionados, would however benefit from fresh ideas. Wolfgang had long insisted that Gudrun, his second wife whom he married in 1976, was the only person capable of taking over from him in leading the Bayreuth Festival even though the role of director is usually reserved for direct descendants of Richard Wagner. Despite his lifetime contract, Wolfgang has recently indicated that he may step aside in favour of Katharina, the couple's 29-year-old daughter, who made a controversial directorial  Bayreuth debut  this year with Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (see review). Katharina has suggested a leadership triumvirate with the eminent conductor Christian Thielemann and the former director of the Salzburg Festival, Peter Ruzicka.

Gudrun Armann was born on 15 June 1944  in Allenstein, in what was then East Prussia. When she was only a few weeks old, her mother fled with her into Bavaria, where she was brought up. After studying to become a bilingual secretary and translator,  in the mid-1960s she answered a classified ad from ‘a cultural institution in northern Bavaria.’ It turned out to be the Bayreuth Festival. In Wolfgang’s autobiography Acts he recalls that time as follows,  ‘By 1960 the functions of the press, publishing and advertising section had proliferated to such an extent that it could fulfil them only by remaining in operation all year round...In 1965, when a vacancy appeared in this section, Gudrun Armann was chosen to fill it by the chief press officer and the head of personnel … My brother being absent, as he so often was except during rehearsal periods and the festival itself, she was formally engaged by me – a fateful step, not that either of us knew it at the time.’

Actually in 1970, Gudrun married Dietrich Mack, who was the festival’s dramaturge but after she became Wolfgang Wagner’s assistant in 1976 and they had both divorced their previous spouses, they married and Katharina was born two years later. Wolfgang’s recalls these events as follows: ‘There was a hint of Wagnerian drama in the fact that my first wife’s petition for a divorce should have been granted at the very time when the … team and I were struggling to put the finishing touches to the new Ring production, or just when the tension of the rehearsal period was at its height. Quite apart from these “minor problems” however, there was the intimate relationship that had developed between Gudrun and me. I was concerned to make the nature of the relationship clear to the outside world if only to banish the preposterous rumours that were circulating … From then on … we were Wolfgang and Gudrun Wagner.’ Though latterly she played down her role in festival affairs, however to a caller who wanted to speak to Wolfgang, she apparently once said, ‘I am my husband’.

So once again speculation has been triggered that the 88-year-old grandson of Richard Wagner may soon hand over the reins amid the ongoing family feud over his succession. Wolfgang's niece, Nike, and Eva, a daughter from his first marriage who have some relevant experience but are in their 60s have for many years also expressed an interest in the job. Gudrun’s sudden death may now make Wolfgang decide to step down sooner rather than later.

I encountered Gudrun myself on several occasions,  including sitting at her left hand during a few suppers she gave with her husband at various Bayreuth Festivals. I was  also   present in London when she gave a very interesting lecture on ‘The Bayreuth Festival – Past, Present and Future’ in October 1999 for The Wagner Society which presented Wolfgang with an award. She always tried to be as helpful as she could when contacted and in person was very approachable, friendly and very talkative. I can only concur with Bavarian state Governor Günther Beckstein who in reacting to Gudrun’s death said: ‘As the most important assistant and supporter of her husband, she shaped the lustre and the worldwide significance of the Wagner Festival in Bayreuth. Her death is a deep loss to Bavaria, Bayreuth and the global festival community.’

© Jim Pritchard