[2] She grew up in Wahnfried, Bayreuth,[3] until her father's death in 1966, whereupon her uncle Wolfgang Wagner had the house measured and asked her widowed mother to pay rent.

[4] She studied musicology, literature and theatre in Berlin,[3] and holds a Ph.D. from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, obtained in 1980 under the direction of Erich Heller.

She is the author of several important books on a variety of subjects, which include Karl Kraus (Geist und Geschlecht: Karl Kraus und die Erotik der Wiener Moderne, Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp, 1982 — a work based on her doctoral dissertation) and the Wagner family (The Wagners: The Dramas of a Musical Dynasty, Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 2001).

Her article questioning the propriety of public subsidies given to high-profile cultural events in general, and the Bayreuth Festival in particular (at present c. US$6.5 million annually), Im Fadenkreuz der Kulturpolitik, published in the July 2006 issue of Cicero: Magazin für politische Kultur, engendered controversy within Germany.

In 1999 Wagner became a member of the Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung, and has served as its vice president since 2011.