Richard Wagner's Legacy: 200 Years of Battle Over Business

The case revolves around the legacy of Richard Wagner, one of the world’s greatest composers. It focuses on his glamorous great-granddaughter Katharina Wagner, who won a bitter family feud, and now runs the yearly Wagner festival — a global cultural highlight and a vast musical enterprise. She positions herself as the modern face of a traditional business. However, in spite of expertly handling the publicity around the Wagner brand, Katharina is struggling to understand and meet the conflicting expectations of many stakeholders. Opponents gleefully expect her and her strategy to fail. Katharina is faced with the question of whether she should continue leading the Wagner festival after 2015, as giving up would mean interrupting 200 years of heritage.

The case can be used to introduce a comprehensive understanding of public relations — which goes far beyond media relations or publicity mongering — and instead broadly comprises the handling of relationships with all external publics upon whom the success of the organisation depends. It also exemplifies how public relations are not only a technique, but a strategy. The publics’ expectations toward an organisation are nearly always conflicting and hence managers, like the case’s protagonists, need to strategically balance them in order to maintain an organisation’s brand and reputation.

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