Eva Weissweiler

Friedelind (born 1918), daughter of Siegfried Wagner, is considered the black sheep of the family and a dissenter of the Wagner clan. As a rebellious child, she was more hated than loved by her mother Winifred and was sent to strict boarding schools and diet clinics. However, Friedelind was undeterred and became an expert on the works of her father and grandfather Richard. In her self-chosen American exile, she wrote her autobiographical key novel "Night over Bayreuth," which caused an uproar in the entire musical world and heavily implicated her mother Winifred in the denazification proceedings. In 1953, Friedelind returned to Germany and the festival for the first time. For nine years, she ran the "Bayreuth Festival Master Classes" with a circle of distinguished instructors. After the death of Wieland Wagner in 1966, the dispute with her brother Wolfgang escalated, who put an end to the master classes and expelled her from the festival house. After stints in England and Switzerland, she died in Germany in 1991. Eva Weissweiler's meticulously researched book, based not only on sources but also on numerous interviews with contemporaries, paints a nuanced picture of Friedelind Wagner as a brave and uncompromising woman, but also as a highly controversial personality. It uncovers numerous contradictions and poses open questions. The author initiated the reprint of Friedelind's nearly lost autobiography "Night over Bayreuth" in 1994. The present biography, at least for the period up to 1940, can also be seen as a commented engagement with "Night over Bayreuth.".