Neue Zürcher Zeitung 24.07.2007

Joachim Güntner explains the personnel structure at the Bayreuth Festival, which opens tomorrow with Katharina Wagner's staging of "The Mastersingers of Nuremberg," her directorial debut there. "Do we have, in Katharina, the future director of the festival before us? Her father would like to see the 29 year old in his place. But there are two other claimants, tapping their fingers. Eva Wagner-Pasquier, Wolfgang's daughter from his first marriage, the creative advisor to the opera festival in Aix-en-Provence, has announced that she will 'definitely' be applying for the position and will not necessarily be waiting for her father's death. And Nike Wagner, the daughter of Wolfgang's brother Wieland, has expressed her interest a little more politely. Since she started directing the Weimar festival, she has been so fulfilled that her 'interest in Bayreuth has been relativised in a most pleasant way.' In the same breath, however, she stresses how well the Weimar experience would qualify her for the directorship of Bayreuth." (Wagner family tree)


Die Welt 24.07.2007

Following the massive victory in Turkey of the AKP, or Justice and Development Party, Zafer Senocak asks how Muslim the populace in fact is. "Aren't a quarter of all Turks Alevis – a free-thinking variant of Islam that has nothing, absolutely nothing, in common with the Islam of the Sharia? Has not a vast majority of the Turking people made peace with the idea of secular society? Turks have a more pragmatic attitude towards religion than most of their brothers and sisters in the Islamic world. And that is now evident: Mustafa Kemal's reforms were not just the attempt at an Utopia for the elite that went unnoticed by the masses. Civil rights and democracy are no longer foreign concepts requiring translation for the Turks." (more by Senocak here)

Dankwart Guratzsch calls "Stuttgart 21", a programme to undo the architectural damage done to the capital of Baden-Wurttemberg after the war, nothing sort of a "revolution" in building politics. "Within the framework of the biggest inner city building project in Stuttgart's history, 11,000 apartments as well as offices and service facilities for 24,000 employees should be created – a 'city within a city' with 1.4 million square metres of built space. With a total investment of six billion euros, Stuttgart 21 is one of the largest investment projects in Europe."


Frankfurter Rundschau 24.07.2007

Peter Michalzik met director Luk Perceval and actor Thomas Thieme in Salzburg over a plate of spaghetti alle vongole, and exchanged some enigmatic words about their five-hour Moliere marathon "Moliere. Eine Passion" (Moliere. A Passion). Combining four of Moliere's plays, the production premieres July 30 at the Salzburg Festival. "Many hours later, Thieme is sitting at another table and Perceval is talking about their working relationship. In a Zen monastery, he says, an apprentice asks the master about enlightenment. 'If you think about God while peeling a potato,' the master says, 'it's got nothing to do with enlightenment. Enlightenment is peeling the potato when you peel the potato.' Pause. 'Thomas Thieme is my potato.' And in a way this potato is what binds this world and Luk Perceval and the theatre and Moliere."


Die Tageszeitung 24.07.2007

A week ago the Polish news magazine Wprost published excerpts of a speech in which Father Tadeusz Rydzyk, head of the Catholic radio broadcaster Radio Maryja, expressed anti-Semitic views to a group of journalism students. Yet he is still recognised as a Father of the Redemptorist Order by his colleagues, writes Gabriele Lesser. "According to the Polish Redemptorists, the slogan 'Don't buy from Jews!' is not anti-Semitic, in fact it's not even an economic boycott against Jews. Rather, it's an 'integration measure for the welfare of the Polish Catholic community.' Poland's Redemtorists don't believe Catholics should 'put up with everything Jews have to say.' And so Father Rydzyk frothed in his speech to the students: 'The Jews will come to you and say: Give me your jacket! Give me your trousers! Give me your shoes!' The up and coming journalists are supposed to understand that Poland's president would be mistaken even to consider paying compensation to Jews who were expropriated by the Communists."