Cosima Wagner

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.

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.

In March 1835 the couple fled Paris for Switzerland; ignoring the scandal they left in their wake, they settled in Geneva where, on 18 December, Marie gave birth to a daughter, Blandine-Rachel.

Her hopes of recovering her status in the city were dented when her influential mother, Madame de Flavigny, refused to acknowledge the children; Marie would not be accepted socially while her daughters were clearly in evidence.

[9][10] Cosima's biographer George Marek describes Anna as "a simple, uneducated, unworldly but warmhearted woman ... for the first time [the girls] experienced what it was to be touched by love".

Early in 1850 Liszt had been disturbed to learn that Blandine and Cosima were seeing their mother again; his response, guided by the princess, was to remove them from their school and place them into the full-time care of Carolyne's old governess, the 72-year-old Madame Patersi de Fossombroni.

[19] Hans von Bülow, born in 1830, had abandoned his legal education after hearing Liszt conduct the premiere of Wagner's Lohengrin at Weimar in August 1850, and had decided to dedicate his life to music.

[21] This visit was repeated the following year, when Cosima, on taking her leave, shocked Wagner with an emotional demonstration: "[S]he fell at my feet, covered my hands with tears and kisses ...

[23] Her attempts to mix with local society, according to Marie zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, were handicapped by "[h]er exaggerated self-esteem and innate causticity", which alienated the men and women in her circle.

[27] A further, unexpected blow for Cosima fell in September 1862, when her sister Blandine, who had shared much of her upbringing, died in childbirth—she had been married to Émile Ollivier, a Parisian lawyer, since October 1857.

[28] Bülow was committed to Wagner's music; in 1858 he had undertaken the preparation of a vocal score for Tristan und Isolde, and by 1862 he was making a fair copy of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.

Wagner, anxious to avoid associating Cosima in a public scandal, deceived Ludwig into issuing a statement in June 1866 which declared the unbroken sanctity of the von Bülows' marriage, and promised retribution for those daring to suggest otherwise.

By the spring of 1873 only a third of the required funds had been raised; further pleas to Ludwig were initially ignored, but early in 1874, with the entire project on the verge of collapse, the king relented and provided a loan.

[69] From June onwards, Cosima's journal entries consist almost entirely of comments on the forthcoming festival's rehearsals, sometimes warmly approving, often critical and anxious; for example, she found the costumes "reminiscent throughout of Red Indian chiefs ... all the marks of provincial tastelessness".

[77] Wagner himself was far from satisfied; in a letter to Ludwig he denounced the singers Albert Niemann and Franz Betz as "theatrical parasites" and complained that Richter had not got a single tempo correct.

[89] Thus Cosima's anti-Semitism predates her association with Wagner, although Marek observes that he nurtured it in her, to the extent that derogatory references to Jews occur, on average, on every fourth page of her 5,000-page journal.

[90] The musicologist Eric Werner argues that Wagner's anti-Semitism derived in part from his initial revolutionary philosophy; as a disciple of Proudhon he saw Jewry as "the embodiment of possession, of monopoly capitalism".

Overall, she and Wagner were entirely satisfied with the outcome of the festival which, unlike its predecessor, had made a handsome profit:[96] "[N]ot once did the spirit of toil and dedication on the part of the artists abate ...

In her seclusion, Cosima learned of an abortive plan masterminded by Julius Kniese, the festival's chorus-master, by which Liszt was to assume the role of music director and Bülow would be chief conductor.

[114] Although the festival's historian, Frederic Spotts, suggests that Cosima was more creative than she affected to be, the primary purpose of all her productions was to follow the instructions and reflect the wishes of the Master: "There is nothing left for us here to create, but only to perfect in detail".

[117] The subordination of the music to text, diction and character portrayal was a specific feature of the Bayreuth style;[118] Cosima, according to Spotts, turned the principle of clear enunciation into "a fetish ...

[123] In 1903, taking advantage of the lack of a copyright agreement between the United States and Germany, Heinrich Conried of the New York Metropolitan Opera announced that he would stage Parsifal later that year.

[131] Cosima moved into rooms to the rear of Wahnfried, away from the house's daily bustle, where she passed her days surrounded by Wagner's possessions and numerous family portraits.

[132] Siegfried made few changes to the production traditions set by Wagner and Cosima; Spotts records that "whatever had been laid down by his parents was preserved unchanged out of a sense of strict filial duty".

[135] In December 1908 Eva, then 41, married Houston Stewart Chamberlain, a British-born historian who had adopted as his personal creed a fanatical form of German nationalism based on principles of extreme racial and cultural purity.

[142] A happier family event from Cosima's standpoint was Siegfried's marriage in 1915, at the age of 46, to Winifred Williams, the 18-year-old foster-daughter of Karl Klindworth who had been friends with both Wagner and Liszt.

The tenor Lauritz Melchior remembered Siegfried returning from frequent visits to a small gallery above the stage and saying "Mama wants..."[149] By 1927, the year of her 90th birthday, Cosima's health was failing.

[151] Cosima's life mission was total service to Wagner and his works; in the words of the music critic Eric Salzman she "submitted herself body and soul to the Master".

[156] The critic and one-time librettist Philip Hensher writes that "under the guidance of her repulsive racial-theorist son-in-law [Chamberlain] ... Cosima tried to turn Bayreuth into a centre for the cult of German purity."

Under Cosima Wagner Parsifal was performed 97 times, Tristan und Isolde 24, Die Meistersinger 22, Tannhäuser 21, Lohengrin 6, the Ring cycle 18 and Der fliegende Holländer 10.