GERMANY-OPERA/MERKEL Germany's Merkel, husband attend annual Wagner opera festival in Bayreuth

Record ID: 146076

  • Title: GERMANY-OPERA/MERKEL Germany's Merkel, husband attend annual Wagner opera festival in Bayreuth
  • Date: 25th July 2015
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF MUSICIANS ON BALCONY
  • Embargoed: 9th August 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Germany
  • Country: Germany
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA5BAUYFG3V9N0EOHQ1V3OXPXN7
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: German Chancellor Angela Merkel attended the annual opera Bayreuth Festival in southern Germany on Saturday (July 25), wearing what one visitor described as "a beautiful mermaid blue" evening gown.
    Accompanied by her husband Joachim Sauer, Merkel joined celebrities from politics and the show business industry on the red carpet for the event she traditionally visits during her summer holiday.
    "I have never seen her before and I especially liked her," said visitor Monika Herzing, standing outside the opera house in a crowd of people, many of whom had waited there since the early morning hours.
    "I'm here to see famous people and Wagner is great," said another visitor, Kerstin Kragely.
    The Bayreuth Festival, which was conceived by Richard Wagner, dates back to 1876 and is celebrated for its stagings of his operas, including "Tristan and Isolde", "Parsifal" and the four operas of the monumental cycle "The Ring of the Nibelung".
    Although Wagner, who penned several anti-Semitic texts, died half a century before Adolf Hitler came to power, the Nazi dictator was an admirer and drew on the composer's writings in his own theories on racial purity and exterminating the Jews.
    Winifred Wagner, Wagner's daughter in law, who headed the festival under Nazi rule, was a close personal friend and an admirer of Hitler's until her death in 1980. Hitler frequently attended the festival.
    Wagner's work has played to sold out crowds at the festival since the mid-1950s, with eager opera enthusiasts often waiting as long as 10 years for tickets to the Bayreuth Festspielhaus theatre.
    The annual opera frenzy is a highlight of German cultural life, providing both scandal and entertainment.
    Chancellor Angela Merkel visits it regularly and it is one of only few occasions a year where her husband Joachim Sauer accompanies her in public.
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