Diary – 8 September 2007

A lifetime’s ambition is fulfilled as I get to hear and see Wagner in Bayreuth…

Bayreuth
A lifetime’s ambition is fulfilled as I get to hear and see Wagner in Bayreuth. After 1945 it was touch and go whether enough support could be found to get the Bayreuth Festspielhaus back on its feet for the month-long festival of Wagner operas. It was the German trade unions who stepped in to support the reopening of the festival despite Bayreuth’s Nazi connections. As a result, 4,000 tickets at £50 a head are still reserved for trade unionists and German labour friends get me a ticket for the Die Meistersinger. As we take our seats my host whispers, ‘Just behind is the box where he sat. You know, the F— word.’ Her husband bellows out, ‘You mean der Führer!’ and the audience sighs with history.

It is a lively, modern interpretation with the usual naked breasts and a willy on stage. We sit down at 3 p.m. and emerge at 9.40 p.m. utterly absorbed. Most of the audience cheers but there are some boos coming from the notorious box just behind us. The producer is Katharina Wagner, great-granddaughter of Richard. She is 29 and as she takes her bow her long blond hair sweeps her feet. I hope they make her the new boss of Bayreuth. If not, Covent Garden should hire her. Perhaps she will get the TUC to sponsor opera and I can realise another ambition — to see more opera in Britain on an MP’s pay. Another of my hosts is a big cheese at the Frankfurt Book Fair, which each year singles out a country’s writers for special attention. He says Frankfurt would like to make Britain and our writers the honoured country.