Daughter of Marie d'Agoult and Franz Liszt, wife of Richard Wagner, director of Bayreuth Festival
Portrait by Franz von Lenbach, 1879
Francesca Gaetana Cosima Wagner (née Liszt; 24 December 1837 – 1April 1930) was the daughter of the Hungarian composer and pianist Franz Liszt and Franco-German romantic author Marie d'Agoult. She became the second wife of the German composer Richard Wagner, and with him founded the Bayreuth Festival as a showcase for his stage works; after his death she devoted the rest of her life to the promotion of his music and philosophy. Commentators have recognised Cosima as the principal inspiration for Wagner's later works, particularly Parsifal.
In 1857, after a childhood largely spent under the care of her grandmother and with governesses, Cosima married the conductor Hans von Bülow. Although the marriage produced two children, it was largely a loveless union, and in 1863 Cosima began a relationship with Wagner, who was 24 years her senior. They married in 1870; after Wagner's death in 1883 she directed the Bayreuth Festival for more than 20 years, increasing its repertoire to form the Bayreuth canon of ten operas and establishing the festival as a major event in the world of musical theatre.
During her directorship, Cosima opposed theatrical innovations and adhered closely to Wagner's original productions of his works, an approach continued by her successors long after her retirement in 1907. She shared Wagner's convictions of German cultural and racial superiority, and under her influence, Bayreuth became increasingly identified with antisemitism. This was a defining aspect of Bayreuth for decades, into the Nazi era which closely followed her death there in 1930. Thus, although she is widely perceived as the saviour of the festival, her legacy remains controversial.
Francesca Gaetana CosimaWagner (née Liszt; 24 December 1837 – 1 April 1930) was the daughter of the Hungarian composer and pianist Franz Liszt and Franco-German...
Bayreuth Festival, which was galvanized by the efforts of his wife CosimaWagner and the family's descendants. His thoughts on the relative contributions...
philanthropist CosimaWagner (1837–1930), diarist and director of the Bayreuth Festival, daughter of Franz Liszt and widow of Richard Wagner Lara Cosima Henckel...
According to Cosima's diaries (26 December 1868) Wagner "did not believe" that Ludwig Geyer was his real father. At the same time Cosima noted a resemblance...
Bayreuth Festival from 1908 to 1930. Siegfried Wagner was born in 1869 to Richard Wagner and his future wife Cosima (née Liszt), at Tribschen on Lake Lucerne...
Bülow, mother of five children (including Cosima's two daughters with Bülow, Blandine and Daniela, Wagner's step-children): Isolde Ludowitz von Bülow...
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Winifred Marjorie Wagner (née Williams; 23 June 1897 – 5 March 1980) was the English-born wife of Siegfried Wagner, the son of Richard Wagner, and ran the...
annoyance; his wife CosimaWagner quoted him as saying "People will think all this nonsense is done at my request!". In fact Wagner himself never publicly...
have just left the intimate circle of the Dear Friends (i.e. Richard & CosimaWagner) and have retired to the cosy little room which we shared when we were...
was the first child of the composer Richard Wagner and his wife, who is generally known as CosimaWagner (though the two of them married only in 1870)...
Richard Wagner is a symphonic poem for chamber orchestra. Wagner composed the Siegfried Idyll as a birthday present to his second wife, Cosima, after the...
pen, dividing the whole into three acts. However, as his second wife CosimaWagner later reported on 22 April 1879, this account had been colored by a...
Papperitz (1846-1918) shows Franz von Lenbach, Siegfried Wagner, CosimaWagner, Mrs Materna, Richard Wagner, Hermann Levi, Hans Richter, Franz Liszt (at the piano)...
to the Wahnfried to meet CosimaWagner, the reclusive leader of the Wagner cult. Chamberlain later recalled that CosimaWagner had "electrified" him as...
list of cinema films which have music by Richard Wagner in their soundtracks (other than films of Wagner's operas themselves). Casual references (and use...
the Bayreuth canon established under the direction of his grandmother CosimaWagner.[citation needed] Wolfgang attracted some criticism for what was seen...
Richard Wagner was dismissive of Nietzsche's music, allegedly mocking a birthday gift of a piano composition sent by Nietzsche in 1871 to his wife Cosima. German...
virtuoso Hans von Bülow, who married Liszt's daughter Cosima in 1857 (she would later marry Wagner). Liszt's work during this period made Weimar a nexus...
Gobineau met and befriended the German composer Richard Wagner and his wife Cosima. Wagner was greatly impressed with the Essai sur l'inégalité des races...
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