BERLIN: Outrage in Israel about leaked reports that one of the country's leading orchestras has been invited to open next year's Wagner festival in Bayreuth, southern Germany, has prompted the composer's great-granddaughter and festival head to withdraw the invitation.

Leaked reports about the planned visit provoked outrage among Holocaust survivors, who said it was inexplicable that the Israel Chamber Orchestra would break a decades' old unofficial boycott to perform music by Hitler's favourite composer, who also held anti-Semitic views.

The orchestra will perform in the town of Bayreuth, in Bavaria, but not at the festival.