Twilight of the Wagners : the unveiling of a family's legacy / Gottfried Wagner ; English translation by Della Couling.
| Author/creator | Wagner, Gottfried, 1947- |
| Format | Book |
| Edition | First Picador USA edition. |
| Publication Info | New York : Picador USA, 1999. |
| Description | viii, 310 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm |
| Subjects |
| Uniform title | Wer nicht mit dem Wolf heult. English |
| Contents | Wagner family tree -- Villa Wahnfried -- New directions -- The will to power I -- The anti-semitism of the Wagner family, 1850-1945 -- The will to power II -- The Richard Wagner Foundation -- The will to power III -- Winifred's film -- The festival centenary -- In search of myself -- On the trail of Kurt Weill -- The long arm of Bayreuth -- Return to Germany -- Teresina -- The monastery and the bank -- My Italian wedding -- Back to the culture jungle -- Bonn and Orange -- On the road with Nietzsche, Wagner, and Liszt -- Hitler and Wagner? -- Israel -- Father's last letter -- The ban from Bayreuth -- Anti-semitism and opera business -- Eugenio, my son -- On tour with Richard Wagner's anti-semitism -- The post-holocaust dialogue group : and in the beginning was Auschwitz. |
| Abstract | Richard Wagner's great-grandson Gottfried Wagner, born after the end of World War II, was taught to worship his great-grandfather as a cultural ancestor of all of Germany. Perhaps no one took Richard Wagner's polemics more to heart than Adolf Hitler, for whom the musician was a foundational influence. In Gottfried Wagner's memoir, Hitler is an inescapable presence, as he was in Gottfried's family--one of the many specters haunting the Wagner estate, though young Gottfried wondered if he was the only one who could see them. One afternoon he discovered old photographs and oil paintings of Hitler among the family memorabilia. Warned never to mention the pictures to anyone, he became an unwilling coconspirator in his family's secret. Gottfried Wagner reclaimed his voice during adolescence and began an impassioned crusade in adulthood to examine the hatred and racism he knew growing up in Bayreuth. Although disinherited and ostracized by his father, Gottfried has become an outspoken critic of Richard Wagner's legacy and a champion of greater understanding between Germans and Holocaust survivors worldwide. With a judicious eye for detail, a sweeping sense of conscience, and the determination to redeem himself and his past, Gottfried Wagner lays bare the sins of this powerful family. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references (pages 301-303) and index. |
| LCCN | 99019715 |
| ISBN | 0312199570 |