Administration: Prof. Eva Märtson

Minutes: Paul Götz

Participants: Augsburg Karl Russwurm (VM)

Bamberg Dr. Ingrid Huther-Thor

Bayreuth Paul Götz

Berlin Rainer Fineske

Bonn / Siegburg Gerti Kunze (VM)

Braunschweig Elisabeth Rheinländer

Bregenz Peter Sternberger

Bremen Dr. Jutta Hering-Winckler (VM)

Brno (Brünn) mag Vladimir Kiseljov

Budapest Eva Király

Chemnitz Matthias Ries-Wolff

Coburg Dietmar Schaffer

Dessau Holger Pomaske (VM)

Dresden Klaus Weinhold (VM)

Dublin Anthony Linehan

Düsseldorf Lotte Zahn

Edinbourgh Derek Watson

Frankfurt/Main Dirk Jenders

Freiburg Josef Lienhart

Fulda Ingeborg Brokamp

Genève Georges Schürch

Graz Dipl.-Ing. Heinz Weyringer

Hannover Gunnar Lundin

Heidelberg Dr. Gabriele Priester

Innsbruck Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Ekkehard Kappler

Karlsruhe Prof. Dr. Hans-Michael Schneider

Kassel Gerhard Becker (VM)

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København Finn Elkjær

Koblenz Odina Diephaus

La Gaude Yves Courmes

Leipzig Thomas Krakow

Linz Katharina Milanollo

Lyon Cantal Babin (VM)

Milano Liliana Konigsman

Minden Dr. Jutta Hering-Winckler

München Karl Russwurm

Münster Robert Hasenjäger (VM)

New York Dr. Hannelore Wilfert (VM)

Nice Georges Rossi

Nimes Dr. Andrée Benoit-Aberlanc

Nürnberg Ute Bergfeld

Paris Annie Benoit

Praha (Prag) Dipl.-Ing. Ludek Patrák

Reykjavik Dr. Arni Björnsson (VM)

Saarbrücken Hermann Kronz

Sevilla Renate Meleno Rodrigues

Solingen Hans Dieter Krath

Stockholm Torun Gille West (VM)

Strasbourg Dr. Louis Oster

Stuttgart Thomas Bogatz

Ulm / Neu-Ulm Bärbel Franz (VM)

Weimar Dr. Eberhard Lüdde

Wroclaw (Breslau) Prof. Dr. Donat Dejas

Wuppertal Gerald Bunge

VM = authorised

Executive committee members without voting rights: Prof. Eva Märtson, President

Maurice Delacourcelle, Vice President

Marcus-Johannes Heinz, Secretary

Hubert Glomm, Treasurer

Honoured guests: Upper Board of Directors Carsten

Hillgruber, City of Bayreuth

Dr. Stefan Specht, manager of the

scholarship foundation

Furthermore, several accompanying other board members from the member associations

Item 1 President’s greeting and statement of schedule

Item 2 Welcoming and introducing new associations and new chairpersons

Item 3 Activities of the president and Executive Committee

especially:

Item 4 Treasurer’s report on accounts and assets

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Item 5 Auditor’s report with proposal to relieve the Executive Committee according to Section

10 Paragraph 1 c of the Constitution

Item 6 Report from the manager of the scholarship foundation

Item 7 Organising future congresses

meeting

Item 8 To clear up uncertainties arisen from § 8 of the Constitution, the Executive Committee

submits the attached resolution proposal, reached by unanimous vote of all members

of the Executive Committee, to the delegates’ meeting.

Item 9 Proposals and requests

_________________________________________________________________________________

Item 1 Madam President, Professor Eva Märtson, welcomed the lady and gentleman

delegates from far and near, by name Dr. Hannelore Wilfert from New York and Ms.

Okamoto from Tokyo who came in place of Ms. Miyake.

to champion the works of Richard Wagner and on the other hand, promote musical

youth virtually in the dynamic events of our time!"

Madam President commemorated the late chairperson of the RWV Magdeburg, Astrid

Eberlein, deceased on 18th May 2010. She was closely associated with the

Magdeburg Theatre and it was on her side whenever the Wagner Friends were

recruiting in the capital city of Saxony-Anhalt.

At this point, Upper Board of Directors member, Carsten Gruber, on behalf of the

Bayreuth Lord Mayor Dr. Michael Hohl, brought greetings from the festival city of

Bayreuth and the Lord Mayor. This year's Bayreuth Festival took place for the 100th

time and the city was preparing for the big anniversary in 2013, the year of Richard

Wagner's 200th birthday. This year, the reopening of Wahnfried House and a new

"Ring" at the Festival Hall was at the center of all the events.

Item 2 Madam President reported that at the last Executive Committee meeting, the following

associations were accepted into the RWVI:

As the new chairpersons, she welcomed

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Madam President announced that the RWV Regensburg had to be excluded from the

RWVI because despite repeated reminders, it had failed to make its contribution

payments to the RWVI wholly or in part. This is very unfortunate and not humanly

understandable.

Item 3 Madam President pointed out important events in 2010. They are reprinted in 2010

Annual Report.

- Dipl.-Ing. [Graduate Engineer] Heinz Weyringer is again promoting for the finals of

the 6th International competition for stage direction and design which will be held

between the 24th and 26th June 2011 in Graz. These competitions are an unparalleled

success story for RWVI. 850 teams from 42 nations had participated in previous

competitions. Seven teams received contracts for productions from opera houses.

Several teams are booked up to three years in advance. The juries were able to be

supplemented by other prominent opera directors. It was a pleasure to experience the

work of the young people.

- Prof. Dr, Hans-Michael Schneider was allowed to speak on the preliminary report of

the 7th International Singing Competition for Wagner Voices which will take place on

11th to 13th October 2012 in the KarlsruheTheatre. The chairperson of the jury, Eva

Wagner-Pasquier, will again take over as festival director. Between the semifinals and

finals, on 12th October 2012, the Karlsruhe Theatre will hold a Wagner opera -

probably "Tannhauser". Thanks to several generous sponsors, the prize money for the

finals, the First Price, the Wolfgang Wagner Prize, the Dorothea Glatt Prize and the

Audience Award can be greatly increased. Nevertheless, the organizing RWV

Karlsruhe would appreciate any financial support from the local chapters of the RWVI.

- Madam President reported that for the next "Stichwort Wagner [Keyword Wagner]"

in 2013, an invitation to Bamberg had been able to be expressed. The topic is:

"Richard Wagner and E.T.A. Hoffmann". A better historical place than Bamberg could

not have been offered.

- Then Madam President turned to a topic that is very dear to her: The collaboration

with universities. For the 3rd time, within the past two years, a symposium of the

Conrad-Adenauer-Foundation which deals with Richard Wagner will take place.

Together with the Heinrich Heine Foundation in Düsseldorf and the Circle Richard

Wagner in Paris, she will go to Paris with the students. The president of the Heinrich

Heine Foundation and the RWVI and four other speakers will report on the subject:

"Heine-Wagner-Paris".

The interest of the universities is great. Thus, after Cambridge University Wagner

Society in the past year, the Oxford Wagner Society was able to be established on

10th February 2011. There is also the University Wagner Society in Singapore.

In Germany, Ms. Bergfeld has made contact with the Friedrich Alexander University in

Erlangen Nuremberg. Other universities with which we were in contact with are

Bayreuth, Paderborn, Düsseldorf, Gottingen, Berlin, Graz, Toulouse and Melbourne.

In Vienna, contacts with the Secretary General of the European Academy of Music

Theatre have been established. They see it as a great potential to create a network of

university associations and involve young music scholars as guest speakers who are

writing their dissertation on Wagner and the topics which have already been supported

financially by the RWVI. They named names like Antonia Goldhammer / Bayreuth (her

work: "Do you know how this will be" who wrote about Stefan Her/him Bayreuth

"Parsifal" production), Martin Schneider / Berlin ("Knower of the unconscious - Richard

Wagner's concept of romantic subjectivity") and Simone Brandes / Düsseldorf

("Salvatore Dali and the theatre").

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Prof. Märtson thanked Ute Bergfeld, Thomas Bogatz and Henriette Bollier for the

support of their respective work.

- Marcus-Johannes Heinz, the online communicator of the RWVI, then reported on

current figures and various innovations on the Internet. The RWVI currently includes

146 individual associations with 24,096 members. 111 units have sent reports for the

Annual Report. In Germany there are 10,680 members in local associations.

We now have the possibility of global communications and information like never

before. One could, for example, watch the Ring Project at the World Expo in Shanghai

and the Wagner symposium in Tokyo live over the Internet. The RWVI websites have

experienced a number of optimizations and additions. On the homepage there is a

news ticker. The topics which are searched for most on the search engines will now be

even more prominently placed and highlighted.

In the meantime, the links from online newspapers and the like have been carefully

reworked. Basically, says Heinz, links to the online articles should only be available if

the relevant regulations allow the newspaper publisher that right. If the linking is

allowed, the citation right must also be observed. After the source, the issue, the

publication date, the author of the article if specified by name, the complete link and in

brackets, the date on which the link was first retrieved must be exactly specified.

Other contents that have been expanded are the preview of important dates /

previews and a Wagner performance calendar as well as links that are now sorted by

topic and can be accessed directly and the imprint.

The imprint must be expressly identified as such. It must be available in the languages

that are found on the website. It should identify who is owner of the site, who is the

legal board, and where, as far as editorial content such as news is it available and

who is responsible for its content. Likewise, one should mention copyright protection,

liability protection and rights violations.

The RWVI website is a joint portal for all of us. It would therefore be desirable that all

the RWVI not just stand somewhere in the middle of all possible links, but also in

terms of news, they should clearly and prominently indicate the RWVI sites. They

could also be referred to in circulars. A big thanks to Marcus-Johannes Heinz.

Item 4 The accounting and financial reporting was given by Treasurer Hubert Glomm. With

an assets increase of € 6,179.35, the largest asset growth in recent years has been

achieved. The total assets had amounted to € 40,146.80 on 30th April 2011. This was

mainly due to the fact that through the intensive use of the Internet, significant savings

have been obtained. An additional amount was reached by the integration of non-

German local chapters in the general contribution scheme of € 2. - per member. Also

encouraging was the surplus arising from the Congress in Stralsund of € 6,510.04,

which had been transferred by ars musica.

Item 5 The auditors' report of the audit was delivered by Dr. Stefan Specht. The cash audit

which he had made on 29th March 2011 with Ms. Bauriedel, showed no discrepancies.

He thanked Hubert Glomm explicitly for the time-consuming work. His application to

approve the actions of the Treasurer and the entire Board was adopted unanimously.

Item 4 Then Mr. Glomm said that he also had to pour some cold water on the subject. He

said: "I think that there should be a close and trusting cooperation between the

executive board and the treasurer. This means that substantial expenditures must be

mutually coordinated against other expenditures. I must administer your money, third

party money and must account for the use of it. You want to trust me, I have to trust

people who act in this area i.e. who could spend an unlimited amount. I do not have

this confidence in Mr. Krakow any longer. "

He then spoke of two events in which the RWVI incurred financial damages through

the conduct of Mr. Krakow, namely a non pre-arranged trip to Wroclaw and an

continued

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uncontrolled awarding and settlement for porcelain medals at the congress in Dresden

in 2009.

Mr. Krakow dismissed the allegations. As an authorized representative of the

congress, it was necessary, to look around and get to know the people involved in

Wroclaw. Only the accommodations and transportation were charged. He was not

trying to enrich himself through the sale of the medals. Due to a misunderstanding,

several medals were also given away.

Item 8 Since Mr. Glomm still had the floor; he also presented an amendment to the Articles

adopted unanimously by the Executive Committee which should be voted on. With the

amendment of the Articles, two things would be accomplished:

1. The clarification that all four vice presidents elected to the Executive Committee

are equal. There was never anything else intended by the fathers of the 2009

adopted Articles (Hubert Glomm, Paul Goetz, Dr. Louis Oster and notary Eberl,

Bayreuth), but through cost estimates in connection with the representative

authority, misunderstandings had arisen which needed to be eliminated at this

time.

2. A new revision of the representative authority (up to this point, two of the four

Vice-presidents, future Treasurer). This would serve the equality of the Vicepresidents;

it is also practical to have the Treasurer in the authority that manages

the assets of the association. This solution was proposed by notary Eberl because

it reflects practices in other clubs. (Glomm) did not have a vested interest in this

solution.

Hubert Glomm noted further, "With the application for amendment of the Articles, I

want to present the question of confidence in my current and future work from the

Assembly of Delegates".

There was then a lively and sometimes heated discussion with many speeches. In

particular, Dirk Jenders, RWV Frankfurt / Main and Dr. Hannelore Wilfert, New York,

argued vehemently for a postponement of the decision. Honorary President Josef

Lienhart tried to appease, we are not after all in the Chancellor's office and can devote

ourselves solely to the "most beautiful thing in the world." Paul Goetz also could not

understand the fuss, saying: "If I correctly estimate the atmosphere in the hall, then

under the given circumstances, a three-fourths majority which is necessary for

amending the Articles, cannot be reached. I therefore ask for a postponement. I could

also live with it if the Articles remain as they are now."

Completely by surprise, Hubert Glomm took the floor and said: "I am giving up the

Office of the Treasurer effective 30th Sept. 2011." At this time, Madam President saw

that the time had come to break off discussions. There was one dissenting vote for an

adjournment to an extraordinary delegates' assembly later this year.

Item 6 Attorney Dr. Stefan Specht, Managing Director of the Richard Wagner Scholarship

Foundation gave his report. He thanked the delegates for their support, noting that the

RWV Regensburg which is excluded from the RWVI received no scholarships in 2011.

Those entitled to nominate may only come from the member associations in goodstanding

with the RWVI.

He described in detail how the 250 scholarship holders from 34 countries were

assembled. Only 25% of the scholarship holders had requested a cash grant. Specht

then presented the program that the scholarship holders will enjoy in this Festival

summer. For the first time there will be a public concert on 11th August 2011 by the

scholarship holders in the Großes Haus of the Bayreuth City Hall. Tickets will be

available from 15th July 2011 at the theatre box office in Bayreuth.

Specht could already name the plays which the scholarship holders will see in 2012.

These are "Tristan and Isolde" "Tannhauser" and "Parsifal" between the 8th and 11th

August 2012.

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Item 7 Because of the lateness of the hour, the sub items "Leipzig 2013", "2014 Graz" and

"Participation by other interested non-voting members in the Delegates Assembly" and

TOP 9 (Wishes and requests) could not be dealt with.

There was only time for Mr. Ludek Patrak, the Chairperson of the RWV Prague, to

introduce the program for the International Richard Wagner Congress 2012. At the

National Theatre in Prague, "Parsifal" and "The Bartered Bride" by F. Smetana and in

the Estates Theatre, "Cosí fan tutte" will be performed. These include a boat cruise

dinner, trips, a symposium in the Rudolphinum as well as a ceremony and banquet at

the State Opera.

Hanover, 13th June 2011 Bayreuth, 13th June 2011

Prof. Eva Märtson Paul Götz

President Minutes keeper

Dipl.-Übersetzer Jörn Schüler M.A., Mannheim

www.uebersetzernetzwerk.net