If Wagner was the cultural and musical chronicler of his time, if he remained a revolutionary activist, he had also gone into the act of police, and if he was finally his master of Bayreuth celebrated as the one of the major artist of his At the time, the illustrious composer did not live before a man made of chair and blood, animated by passions, with a sometimes violent, sometimes facetious, and sometimes tender character.
WAGNER-PASQUIER Eva
(born on 14 April 1945)
Daughter of Wolfgang Wagner and Ellen Drexel
Theaters and Opera Festivals director
Director of the Bayreuth Festival from 2008 till 2015
Born in Oberwarmensteinach on 14 April, 1945, Eva is the daughter of Wolfgang Wagner and his first wife Ellen Drexel. After her uncle Wieland Wagner passed away, she became her father’s assistant at the Bayreuth Festival from 1967 to 1975.
Worthy daughter of her father, Eva Wagner knew about the stage and its demands, especially the very particular ones from the prestigious Festival that she partially headed. That was how she attended to the heavy task of selecting the artists of the “Centennial Ring” (the 1976 one, of course): apart from theGwyneth Jones‘ Brünnhilde, already known for having played the same role in the preceding one, the one by Sir Georg Solti, it is a new generation of singers capable of playing the so formidable Wagnerian repertoire, that she found, recruited and got involved in this extraordinary adventure conducted by the duo Boulez-Chéreau. Some of them (Manfred Jung, Donald Mc Intyre, Peter Hofmann or Jeanine Altmeyer) were real revelations and would be part of the legend not only of the Festival, but also of the whole Wagnerian scene.
Outside the walls of Bayreuth, Eva Wagner also assisted August Everding at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, in London, in 1979, a stage that quickly called for her presence as an artistic director. At the Staatsoper in Vienna, she would be, this time, with Otto Schenck.
Eva Wagner, who decidedly wasn’t scared of any responsibility or job, joined the production company Unitel Films in Munich in 1984, where she directed a large number of show recordings (operas and concerts). She was later called to the National Paris Opera (Bastille), where she worked as Director of programming from 1987 to 1993.
The number of lyric stages and theatres where she expressed her talents is impressive: the Houston Grand Opera in Texas, the Théâtre du Châtelet where she worked alongside Stéphane Lissner, Madrid’s Teatro Real, the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence and currently the Metropolitan Opera of New York where she holds the position of Artistic Consultant are places where Richard Wagner’s great-granddaughter demonstrated her undeniable knowledge of both the repertoire and the voices to play it, just like her qualities at the helm of the most prestigious theatres.
Appointed in 2008 in conjunction with her half-sister Katharina as co-director of the Bayreuth Festival, Eva Wagner took the reins from her father Wolfgang Wagner and wrote her own name in the legend of the Festival. With their contracts expiring in September 2015, Eva Wagner asked the Foundation in charge of managing the Festival not to extend hers; according to the regional daily newspaper Nordbayerischer Kurier: “I have asked to keep a position as adviser starting from September 2015”, she explained to the newspaper.
Everyone recognizes Eva Wagner‘s discreet, elegant career, and that she has not been thirsty for the rage of power, given that in the various functions she occupied, she was essentially a competent adviser and particularly remarkable with her tact.
In recognition of her work, Eva Wagner was named Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters. She is now Honorary President of the Richard Wagner Society of Paris, a member of the Bologna Music Academy and a founding member of the Louis Vuitton Foundation (later named Orcofi). During the year 2010, she was also honoured with the insignia of Knight of the Legion of Honour.
In real life, Eva Wagner is married to French film producer Yves Pasquier.
CPL.
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