By Andrew Clark,

When the giants are handed the Rhine gold in Richard Wagner’s epic music drama The Ring of the Nibelungs, everyone heaves a sigh of relief: the crisis over the gods’ survival has been resolved. The giants then start a deadly fight over the gold, as the ring’s curse takes effect.

Observers of the opera world this week asked whether a similar curse might be hanging over the Wagner festival, founded by the composer in the north Bavarian town of Bayreuth in 1876 and regarded as one of Germany’s cultural jewels.

Last Monday the festival’s board appointed Katharina Wagner, 30, and her half-sister Eva Wagner-Pasquier, 63, as joint directors in succession to their frail father, Wolfgang Wagner, 89.

The appointment ends a damaging hiatus over the future of the festival. It also aims to heal Wagner family strife, seen in the German media as a long-running soap opera. But Katharina and Eva, great-grandchildren of the composer, are barely acquainted and have spent the past 10 years sniping at each other. Their decision to join forces was pragmatic: it was their only chance of winning a share of the family gold. Neither has articulated a detailed plan for the festival’s renewal.

The two half-sisters defeated a rival application from their cousin, Nike Wagner. She had made a late bid for the director’s post in partnership with Gerard Mortier, a controversial Belgian opera manager, who tried to revolutionise the Salzburg festival in the 1990s. Nike’s plans – broadening the Bayreuth programme to include little-known Wagner music and works by other composers – were dismissed as too adventurous. Many Bayreuth-watchers believe the festival needs a radical infusion of ideas – preferably from outside the Wagner family – if it is to regain its position at the pinnacle of Wagner interpretation.

Eva, who is a consultant to the Aix-en-Provence festival in France, said after Monday’s announcement that she would take care of casting and the creative side of the festival, while Katharina would deal mainly with press, publicity and marketing.

But no one expects Katharina to be content with handling publicity.

She sees herself as an artist and already boasts a thriving career as a producer, having directed Wagner’s The Mastersingers of Nuremberg last year at Bayreuth. She has virtually run the festival single-handed since the death of her mother Gudrun last December.

With her glamorous looks and media-friendly image, she would have the upper hand in any power-struggle with her half-sister, who has fought shy of publicity.

“The appointment [of Katharina and Eva] is a vote in favour of the status quo,” said Albrecht Thiemann, editor of Opernwelt, the German opera magazine.

“Neither shows awareness of what a Wagner festival means in the intellectual, historical and moral climate of today. It’s a missed opportunity for renewal.”

The stage is set for the next act in the Wagner family drama. As in the composer’s masterworks, transitions at Bayreuth are usually followed by scenes in which little happens – until the ring’s curse suddenly claims its next victim.