My Life With Wagner by Christian Thielemann; trans. Anthea Bell, book review: Wagner continues to strike chords of controversy
The Berlin-born conductor Christian Thielemann is not unassociated with controversy. Earlier this year, when the Berlin Philharmonic was deciding on a successor to Simon Rattle, he was in the running but, after a tense stalemate, the Russian Kirill Petrenko was appointed. Had he got the job, he would have been the orchestra's first German music director since the Nazi era. He was, however, subsequently appointed music director of the Bayreuth Festival.