Double take: Angela Merkel steps out in same dress she wore to same event four years ago

The German Chancellor appeared on the red carpet at opening of Beyreuth Wagner opera festival in same outfit as she wore in 2008

(L) of German Chancellor Angela Merkel arriving with her husband Joachim Sauer on the red carpet for the opening of the Bayreuth Wagner opera festival outside the Gruener Huegel (Green Hill) opera house in Bayreuth 25 July 2008, and (R) arriving for the same event 25 July 2012, wearing the same evening dress 

The curtain went up Wednesday on the 101st edition of the Bayreuth Festival, the annual month-long celebration of Richard Wagner, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel topping the guest list.

Amid searing temperatures, crowds lined the road leading up to the legendary Festspielhaus theatre on Bayreuth's fabled "Green Hill" to cheer Merkel and other top politicians and stars from show business as they arrived in their black limousines.

The glittering opening gala, beginning at 6:00 pm (1600 GMT), is the premiere of a hotly-awaited new production of the composer's first mature opera, "The Flying Dutchman" by upcoming German director Jan Philipp Gloger.

The staging - the only new one this year - was hit by a scandal just days before the premiere.

Yevgeny Nikitin, the Russian bass-baritone cast in the title role, announced he was pulling out following a row over a Nazi tattoo he sports on his chest.

While the announcement proved a major headache for the festival's organisers who had just four days to find a new lead singer, co-chiefs Katharina Wagner, 34, and her older half-sister Eva Wagner-Pasquier, 67, said Nikitin's withdrawal was "fully in line with our policy of completely rejecting Nazi ideology in any shape or form".
The role is now being sung by Korean bass-baritone Samuel Youn, 40, who has regularly appeared in more minor roles in Bayreuth since 2004 and is already cast to sing the king's herald in a revival of "Lohengrin".
Also on the programme of this year's festival is a revival of last year's new production of "Tannhaeuser" by Sebastian Baumgarten, which was vilified by critics and audiences alike for setting Wagner's tale of a minstrel-knight in a biogas plant.
There will also be revivals of a 2010 production of "Lohengrin", a production of "Parsifal" dating back to 2008; and a "Tristan and Isolde" from 2005.
For many Wagner fans, this year's festival will merely act as a prelude to celebrations marking the 200th anniversary of Wagner's birth next year.
Mrs Merkel appeared in the same full length blue evening gown, accessorised with a pearl necklace, that she was photographed wearing to exactly the same event four years ago.