Harry Kupfer: German opera director who went from enfant terrible to leading light

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy As the curtain fell on German opera director Harry Kupfer’s daring new production of The Flying Dutchman at the 1978 Bayreuth Festival, the crowd erupted. Later, his post-apocalyptic treatment of Wagner’s Ring cycle and his version of Strauss’s Elektra, which he set in an abattoir, would outrage many traditionalists, but four decades on, this enfant terrible was crowned by the German press as the “opera king of Berlin”. Kupfer, who has died aged 84, was born in the German capital, and as a schoolboy would skip lessons to see productions at the city’s Staatsoper. In an interview, he said that it was time to “finally stop apologising for Die Meistersinger”, which was used in Nazi propaganda, and to reset Wagner’s opera to play in “history, today and nowhere”.