Bayreuth, Germany - Wolfgang Wagner, 88, the chief for life of Germany's Wagnerian opera festival in Bayreuth, has offered to step down if his two formerly feuding daughters take over the job, a spokesman said Friday.

The Wagner family's tussle over the future of their summer festival, which exclusively performs the mythic operas of their ancestor Richard Wagner (1813-1883), has itself become the stuff of legend.

The father has used his veto power to block any challenge to his favoured younger daughter, Katharina Wagner, 29. Her enmity with Eva Wagner-Pasquier, 63, the chief's daughter by a previous marriage, had been thought to be permanent.

But 3sat television said Friday they had made up with one another.

Peter Emmerich, Bayreuth Festival spokesman, confirmed Friday to Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that the elder Wagner had hinted he might retire and that the two daughters could jointly step into his place.

Emmerich said Katharina Wagner and Eva Wagner-Pasquier had realised they could work together if the circumstances were right.

The Bayreuth Festival's trust board, which runs the government- subsidized event and formally employs Wagner, is to meet April 29 and the sisters are expected to outline their succession plan then.

Officials have stepped up pressure on Wagner to go. According to 3sat, Wolfgang Wagner offered in a letter Tuesday to the board to retire, saying he could contemplate a collective succession.(dpa)