The battle for Bayreuth

Richard Wagner's great-granddaughter Katharina Wagner is taking on the purists at opera's most exclusive festival – and trying to exorcise its Nazi pastWotan, father of the gods, has just kissed his daughter, Brünnhilde, to sleep and left her to burn alive. Katharina Wagner raises her eyebrows as she smacks her lips around an ice-cream, and looks on in satisfaction at the sea of 20,000 people who have gathered on Bayreuth's carnival ground to watch a live transmission of The Valkyrie on ...

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