Gottfried Wagner Explained

Gottfried Wagner
Birth Date:13 April 1947
Birth Place:Bayreuth, Germany
Nationality:German
Citizenship:Germany, Italy
Education:PhD
Occupation:Multimedia director and publicist
Spouse:Teresina Wagner
Children:Eugenio
Parents:Wolfgang Wagner and Ellen Drexel
Relations:see Wagner family tree

Gottfried Wagner (born 13 April 1947 in Bayreuth)[1] is a multimedia director and publicist.

Gottfried Wagner is the son of Wolfgang Wagner and a great-grandchild of Richard Wagner. His PhD is about Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht. He has concentrated on German culture and politics, as well as Jewish history of the 19th and 20th centuries in numerous publications. He is a member of the PEN-Club Liechtenstein and in 1992 was a co-founder of the Post-Holocaust Discussion Group.[2]

He has been living in Italy since 1983, and has estranged himself from his father's family, openly criticising their involvement with the Nazi regime.[3] [4] His book Twilight of the Wagners: The Unveiling of a Family's Legacy, an autobiography, queried the extent to which his father had extricated himself from the family's close connection to National Socialism,[5] [6] while he has also been critical of many aspects of the Bayreuth Festival.[6] The British film director Tony Palmer has made a two-hour documentary film about the Wagner family in which Gottfried plays a key role.

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Notes and References

  1. http://www.wahnfried.de/archiv/stammbaum.html Richard Wagner Museum, Bayreuth
  2. Web site: Stalnaker . Deidre . 2001-10-02 . Wagner Descendant to Tell UA Audience of His Concern with Family Legacy . 2024-06-19 . University of Alabama News . en-US.
  3. http://www.thelocal.de/society/20130519-49793.html "Wagner descendant slams composer"
  4. http://www.radionetherlandsarchives.org/he-who-does-not-howl-with-the-wolf-composer-richard-wagners-great-grandson-speaks-out/ "He who does not howl with the Wolf", an English-language interview with Gottfried Wagner, Radio Netherlands Archives, April 3, 1998
  5. Kate Connolly "'Lost son' Gottfried Wagner reopens the family feud over Bayreuth", The Observer, 4 April 2010
  6. Martin Kettle "The twilight of the Wagners", The Guardian, 8 June 2000