FRAU COSIMA WAGNER DIES, AT AGE OF 93.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19035, 2 April 1930, Page 9

FRAU COSIMA WAGNER DIES, AT AGE OF 93.

SHE KEPT MEMORY OF HER HUSBAND GREEN.

(United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) (Received April 2, 11.30 a.m.) LONDON, April 1. The death is announced of Frau Cosima Wagner, at the age of 93. She was the widow of Richard Wagner, the famous composer.

Cosima Wagner, the widow of the great composer, was born on December 12, 1837. She was the daughter of another famous composer and pianist Franz Liszt, by his temporary liaison with Marie Comtesse d’Agoult, who later wrote as “ Daniel Stern.” During her father’s years in Weimar (1847-57) she married Hans von Bulow, the wellknown conductor, but in November, 1863, she transferred her affections to Richard Wagner. She was not, however, divorced until July, August of that year she and Wagner were married at Lucerne and her understanding and sympathy were invaluable to him in the production of his music-dramas at Bayreuth. After his death in 1883 she regarded it as her mission to carry on the Bayreuth tradition and keep Wagner’s memory green. This she did with great success, bringing the festival performances to a high pitch of excellence. Later she handed over the task to her son, Siegfried Wagner, but remained for long the outstanding figure at Bayreuth, thanks to her wide culture and fascinating conversation. The war and its consequences brought her gloomy days, especially as at the beginning of 1914 the copyright on Wagner’s works expired and even “ Parsifal,” hitherto reserved for Bayreuth alone, could be given in any theatre. Cosima was therefore compelled to dispose of many Wagner relics, but a relief fund was started by the German stage and eventually it was possible to resume the festival performances. Of Cosima Wagner’s children, three daughters belong to the marriage with Hans von Bulow —Isolde, Daniela and Blandine. The other two Eva (1867) and Siegfried 1869 to the union with Wagner. The mother had many family ■troubles. A bitter dispute regarding the money left by Wagner led her to bring an action against Isolde from which it emerged that her father was Von Bulow, not Wagner. This led to a lasting ertrangement. In 1920 Daniela lost hex husband Thode, while in 1927 Eva’s husband, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, an Englishman, who during the war was more bitter against England than the Germans themselves, died. Blandine married the Italian diplomat, Count Gravina. Bedridden and almost blind, Cosima Wagner had been for some years in a state of complete apathy. In her earlier days she had kept a diary which may now be published by Siegfried, whose wife is an Englishwoman.