Cosima Wagner had about as interesting a life as anyone who didn’t found a religion or personally lead an invasion of a foreign empire. It’s perhaps surprising, since her whole existence was just as ...

BIOGRAPHY: FERGUS JOHNSTONreviews Cosima Wagner: The Lady of BayreuthBy Oliver Hilmes, translated by Stewart Spencer Yale University Press, 366pp. £25 ‘YOU KNOW VERY well how much I know the influence ...

Cosima was the illegitimate daughter of the composer-pianist Franz Liszt and the countess Marie d’Agoult, with whom Liszt also had two other children. Liszt not only legitimatised the births of his ...

Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter The Wagners of Bayreuth are ...

The death of Wolfgang Wagner in March, mourned across Germany, severed a national artery. He was the last of Richard Wagner's grandchildren and the longest ruler of the Bayreuth Festival, the annual ...