Siegfried. A Monologue

1914: On the eve of World War I, Siegfried Wagner, the son of Richard and Cosima and supremo of the Bayreuth Festival must find a way to save it from bankruptcy. In 1930, just before his death, he looks back at his life. Although he managed to secure financial success, he is increasingly disgusted with the ideological exploitation of his father’s legacy that’s been driven forward chiefly by his own wife, Winifred.

Feridun Zaimoglu’s and Günter Senkel’s Siegfried Wagner is caught between heroics and homosexuality, anti-Semitism and philanthropy, artistic endeavour and feeling trapped within his family. Their monologue portrays a man whose vibrant private life was inextricably linked to the political earthquakes of the early 20th century, from the imperial period through to the demise of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Adolf Hitler.