Berlin-based Australian original will direct a new Meistersinger in 2017.

Katharina Wagner has announced that Barrie Kosky will direct a new production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg for Bayreuth in 2017. The future plans were revealed at a press conference during the opening night celebrations at this year’s Wagner Festival. The one time bad-boy of Australian theatre, Kosky will become the first Aussie to direct in the history of the iconic Festival. “Significantly, he will be the most experienced Wagnerian stage director invited to Bayreuth since the demise of Wolfgang Wagner,” says Australian Wagner expert Peter Bassett.

Katharina Wagner, the composer’s great-granddaughter, has shared the directorship at Bayreuth with her half-sister Eva Wagner-Pasquier since the death of her father Wolfgang but the latter is due to quit the Festival at the end of the current season. The artistic standards at Bayreuth have come in for criticism in recent years but Kosky, currently artistic director of Berlin’s popular Komische Oper is seen as a safe pair of hands – a far cry from the days when the late James Waites likened him to Frank Castorf, the director of last year’s controversial Ring cycle. Despite an initial reported reluctance to stage...