The commemorative event, planned under the name “Muted Voices,” which aims to honor murdered Jewish musicians, will now take place as the opening program of the Bayreuth Festival. This decision follows a reversal of an earlier cancellation.
Just one week after the festival’s management notified writer Michel Friedman, who had been invited in September, that the event scheduled for July 26th would not proceed due to security concerns, Festival Director Katharina Wagner made amends. She apologized to Friedman in a personal conversation and assured him that the concert would take place as originally planned.
In a subsequent letter, Wagner wrote to Friedman, stating that it was important for her to “commemorate the terrible things fatally linked to the history of the Festival.” Friedman, who had sharply criticized the initial cancellation and labeled the rationale of security concerns as a “confession of default,” ultimately judged Wagner’s words to be serious and credible. He responded to the South German Zeitung that if someone moves, one should move with them.
As the Bayreuth Festival celebrates its 150th anniversary this year, Friedman is slated to deliver a speech at the festival’s opening that will address several sensitive topics. These include the antisemitism of composer Richard Wagner, the close ties of his descendants to the Nazi regime, and the slow pace of subsequent historical reckoning. In her correspondence with Friedman, Wagner noted that a “purely celebratory gathering would be unbearable” for her.
