Gudrun Wagner
Gudrun Wagner (born June 15, 1944 in Allenstein , East Prussia , as Gudrun Armann ; † November 28, 2007 in Bayreuth ) was one of the organizers of the Richard Wagner Festival in Bayreuth.
Life
Gudrun Wagner grew up in Langquaid , near Regensburg , where she came when she was four weeks old after being expelled from East Prussia. After training as a foreign language correspondent and stays abroad in Paris , Birmingham and London , in 1965 she applied for a job advertisement in the newspaper for the festival's press office, where she initially worked as a secretary. There she met Dietrich Mack , press chief of the festival and later co-editor of Cosima Wagner's diaries , whom she married in 1970. Five years later she became head of the office of festival director Wolfgang Wagner . After they divorced their partners, they married in 1976. Their daughter Katharina was born in May 1978 .
As her husband's assistant (from 1984) and personal adviser (from 1985), Gudrun Wagner advanced to become an influential co-organizer of the festival. When the question of Wolfgang Wagner's successor as festival director was increasingly discussed and calls for his resignation were raised for the first time in 2001, he brought his wife into play as a candidate. However, the plan failed due to the vote of the Board of Trustees of the Festival, which preferred Wolfgang Wagner's daughter from his first marriage, Eva Wagner-Pasquier , whereupon he refused to resign, referred to his contract as festival director for life and remained in office. Due to the poor health of her husband, Gudrun Wagner de facto headed the business in the last few years until her death and in this position also influenced numerous occupations and artistic decisions. According to the Süddeutsche Zeitung , she had forced the family split and was responsible for maintaining the artistic status quo. The dispute within the family had hampered the reform of the festival, which was seen as "necessary". “As Wolfgang Wagner's wife and as his personal collaborator, Gudrun Wagner was as fearless as she was resolute, but at the same time always loyal and truthful in her work. In the last years of Wolfgang Wagner's life, many artistic and organizational decisions would certainly have turned out very differently for the festival without them ”( Klaus Schultz ).
According to the festival administration, Gudrun Wagner went to a Bayreuth hospital on November 26, 2007 for an operation. There she died on the morning of November 28, 2007, presumably of a pulmonary embolism.
Honors, memberships
- 1993 Chevalier des arts et lettres
- 1996 honorary member of the Richard Wagner Association International
- 2004 Rienzi Prize of the Latvian Academy of Culture and the Latvian National Opera in Riga
Web links
- "Death of a Principal" , Tagesspiegel , November 29, 2007
See also
proof
- ↑ "Woman in Fire" , Süddeutsche Zeitung , obituary dated November 28, 2007
- ^ "Gudrun Wagner died" , Deutsche Welle , November 29, 2007
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Wagner, Gudrun |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Armann, Gudrun (maiden name); Mack, Gudrun (first married name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German co-organizer of the Richard Wagner Festival in Bayreuth |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 15, 1944 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Allenstein , East Prussia |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 28, 2007 |
| Place of death | Bayreuth |