Wieland Wagner

German opera director.

Wieland was the elder of two sons of Siegfried and Winifred Wagner, grandson of composer Richard Wagner, and great-grandson of composer Franz Liszt through Wieland's paternal grandmother.

Wieland Wagner is credited as an initiator of Regietheater through ushering in a new modern style to Wagnerian opera as a stage director and designer, substituting a symbolic for a naturalist staging and focusing on the psychology of the drama.

Wieland began his directorial career before World War II, working on operas by his father and grandfather. His innovative approach did not become clear until after the war. When the Bayreuth Festival reopened after the war in 1951, Wieland and his brother Wolfgang became festival directors in place of their mother, whose association with Adolf Hitler had made her unacceptable. The revolutionary productions evoked extreme views both for and against.

Although Wieland is best remembered for production's of his grandfather's works at Bayreuth, he was often asked to work elsewhere in Germany and Europe..[6]

Winifred Wagner's close friendship with Hitler meant that, as a teenager and young man, Wieland knew the dictator as "Uncle Wolf". His family connections allowed him to avoid the draft in the war. Instead, he was a deputy civilian leader of the Bayreuth satellite of the Flossenbürg concentration camp.

Wieland's life and work are discussed in Tony Palmer's 2011 film, The Wagner Family.

He died 17 October 1966.