Cosima Francesca Gaetana Wagner, née de Flavigny, from 1844 Liszt; (25 December 1837 1 April 1930) was the daughter of 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 Como, 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, to whom her father had introduced her in 1853; Wagner was 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 Tribschen, 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 Minna had died, von Bülow had agreed to a divorce and Cosima, who had been baptized and raised a Catholic, had converted to Protestantism. Cosima already had two children from her first marriage, Daniela and Blandine. 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. Cosima was a notorious anti-Semite, perhaps even more so 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
• Carr, Jonathan: The Wagner Clan: The Saga of Germany's Most Illustrious and Infamous Family. Atlantic Monthly Press, 2007. ISBN 0871139758
• "Siegfried Idyll." The Oxford Dictionary of Music, 2nd ed. rev. Ed. Michael Kennedy. Oxford Music Online. 19 Mar. 2009 /www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/opr/t237/e9415>.