The bizarre message from a man identifying himself as Richard Bauer, 44, added extra spice to a battle for succession where two feuding daughters of retiring festival chief Wolfgang Wagner made friends again and applied jointly for the job.

The festival board was meeting Monday afternoon to consider the application from Katharina Wagner, 30, and Eva Wagner-Pasquier, 63.

Competing with them is their estranged cousin, Nike Wagner, 63, who has allied with an impresario, Gerard Mortier, 64.

Bauer claimed in an e-mail Sunday that he was an illegitimate child of Wieland Wagner, who was Nike's father and ran the festival jointly with his brother Wolfgang Wagner, now 88, until his death.

He offered no proof and there was no immediate way to show if the claim was a hoax or true.

In the odd message, Bauer said that if he won control, he would make tickets to the one-month festival held every summer in the provincial Bavarian town of Bayreuth free and raise funds through a television series about the Wagner family.

"I would also be willing to adopt the surname Wagner," the e-mail claimed.

The festival was set up by 19th century composer Richard Wagner to showcase his own work. Though the board is appointed by government, which subsidizes the festival, by tradition Wagner descendants run the event. (dpa)