Fight of the Valkyries (Act II)

With the German news media following the selection with “American Idol”-style breathlessness, the foundation board met on Monday and heard from both sides. It is dominated by officials of the federal, state and local governments, but also has four Wagner family members. The foundation voted in favor of the Wagner half-sisters 22 to 0, with two abstentions, said the German culture minister, Bernd Neumann.

Mr. Neumann welcomed the choice, and more important, he said the federal government would continue “to be committed to its responsibility to support the Bayreuth Festival.” The federal government provides 10 percent of the festival’s annual $23.3 million budget, with another 20 percent coming from state and local governments.

The new team’s plans should be adopted, the minister said, “so that the most famous opera festival in the world continues to do justice to its exemplary role as the trailblazer and hub for the artistic examination of Richard Wagner’s works, his tradition and his international reputation.”

Katharina Wagner, 30, who organised the first web broadcast of Wagner opera this year and her half sister Eva Wagner-Pasquier, 63, who is artistic director of the Aix en Provence music festival pledged to improve the artistic quality of the strife-torn event.

“Our aim is to make Bayreuth the quintessence and standard bearer of Richard Wagner's musical dramas,” the two women said in a joint statement. They announced that Christian Thielemann, the internationally renowned German conductor would serve as their chief advisor.

The announcement appeared to have finally brought an end to over four decades of feuding within the Wagner family over the running of the festival and nearly a decade of fierce rivalry over who should succeed Wolfgang Wagner, the grandson of the composer, as director of the event.

The future of the festival was in doubt right up until yesterday's deadline after Nike Wagner, 63, Wolfgang Wagner's niece submitted a counter-bid for control of the event with the renowned Belgian director Gerard Mortier. She claimed that her cousin had “gone behind her back” to become the front runner.

The composer Richard Wagner and his wife Cosima launched the festival in 1876 and resided in their famous “Wahnfried” villa in the city which like the festival, rapidly became a magnet for opera lovers from throughout Germany and abroad.

The foundation that runs it has always stipulated that a Wagner family member should run the event. But Bayreuth is nowadays one of Germany's key cultural occasions. Its programme runs for only a month each summer but attracts the nation's artists and the political and business elite.

The board on Monday also announced that it was abandoning the practice of granting lifetime tenure. (Details of the contract have not been worked out.) Katharina Wagner said she had no objection, and added that she was glad that the family quarrelling was over.