Overview
Cosima Francesca Gaetana Wagner, née de Flavigny, from 1844 born as Cosima Liszt; (24 December 1837 - 1 April 1930) was the daughter of Hungarian composer Franz Liszt. She was first married to pianist and conductor Hans von Bülow, but 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. Despite Wagner's death in 1883 the Bayreuth Festival nevertheless continued in the summer of 1883 with 12 performances of Parsifal, given by the same artists and assistants who had worked with the composer on the 1882 premiere; but with no overall authoritative figure in charge, problems arose. In 1884 Cosima emerged from her self-imposed seclusion to direct rehearsals; at first simply by means of written notes despatched to the artists. Despite many objections to her supposed lack of qualifications for the task, she continued to govern the festivals for the next 23 years and she undoubtedly saved Wagner's vision from fading into obscurity. Cosima directed the Bayreuth Festival until 1906, when following an Adams-Stokes attack, she retired for health reasons. During her regime a total of 15 festivals took place. In addition to revivals of Parsifal, she 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.