Cosima Wagner

Bust of Cosima Wagner in Bayreuth Festspielpark

Cosima Wagner in London (1877)

Cosima Wagner (December 25, 1837 - April 1, 1930) was the daughter of the virtuoso pianist and composer, Franz Liszt. She became famous as the second wife of the German composer, Richard Wagner.

She was born out of wedlock, at Bellagio, Italy, to the Countess Marie d'Agoult, an author using the pen name Daniel Stern, a long-standing mistress of Liszt. In 1857, Cosima married Hans von Bülow, an orchestral conductor, who mistreated her. It was he who introduced her to Wagner, who was many years her senior and himself already married. They became intimate in 1862, and in 1866, they set up house together at the villa Triebschen, provided by King Ludwig II of Bavaria, on the shore of lake Lucerne, Switzerland. Cosima already had two children from her first marriage, and her children by Wagner - Isolde, Eva and Siegfried - were born before she re-married. From 1869 to 1883, she kept a diary of their life together, which was later published. She was the director of the Bayreuth Festival after the death of Wagner in 1883.