Cosima Francesca Gaetana Wagner, neé Liszt (December 24, 1837 - April 1, 1930) was the daughter of the virtuoso pianist and composer Franz Liszt. She became famous as the second wife of the German composer Richard Wagner and, after his death, as director of the Bayreuth Festival for 31 years. She was born out of wedlock, at Bellagio, Italy, to the Countess Marie d'Agoult, a longtime mistress of Liszt who, after their affair had ended, became an author using the pen name Daniel Stern. In 1857, Cosima married Hans von Bülow, a piano virtuoso, teacher and orchestral conductor. After marrying von Bülow she came into frequent contact with Wagner, whom her father had introduced her to in 1853, himself 24 years her senior and still married to Minna Planer. They became intimate in 1863, and in 1866 they set up house together in a villa at Triebschen, paid for by King Ludwig II of Bavaria, on the shore of Lake Lucerne, Switzerland. Cosima and Richard were eventually married on 25 August 1870, after von Bülow had agreed to a divorce and Cosima had converted to Protestantism. Cosima already had two children from her first marriage, and her future children by Wagner - Isolde, Eva and Siegfried - were born before she married him.
From 1869 to 1883, she kept a detailed diary of their daily life together, which was later published. Although her mother was a descendant of well known Jewish family, Bethmann, Cosima was a notorious anti-Semite, perhaps even more than Wagner, although this was possibly in reaction to her husband. She directed the Bayreuth Festival from the death of Richard Wagner in 1883 until 1906, when she retired for health reasons. During that time a total of 15 festivals took place. Cosima initially revived the 1882 première production of Parsifal, but gradually introduced the other nine operas which make up what has become known as the Bayreuth canon and increased the total number of performances each year to 20. During her tenure, she insisted that the staging of the 1876 premiere performances of the Ring Cycle be strictly adhered to. Her son, Siegfried, carried on this rigid "Bayreuth style" until the outbreak of World War I in 1914, when the Festival stopped operating. When the Festival re-opened in 1924, it continued under the direction of Siegfried. She died at the age of 92 in Bayreuth.
References
- George R. Marek: Cosima Wagner. New York: Harper & Row, 1981. ISBN 0-06-012704-X
- Grove Encyclopedia of Music
- Bayreuth festival home site] This contains information, in German, on the works performed at Bayreuth each year.
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