Wolfgang Wagner (30 August 1919 – 21 March 2010) was a German opera director. He is best known as the director (Festspielleiter) of the Bayreuth Festival, a position he initially assumed alongside his brother Wieland in 1951 until the latter's death in 1966. From then on, he assumed total control until he retired in 2008, although many of the productions which he commissioned were severely criticized in their day. He had been plagued by family conflicts and criticism for many years. He was the son of Siegfried Wagner, the grandson of Richard Wagner, and the great-grandson of Franz Liszt.
Famous quotes containing the words wolfgang and/or wagner:
“If we take people only as they are, then we make them worse; if we treat them as if they were what they should be, then we bring them to where they can be brought.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“... our lives are like soap operas. We can go for months and not tune in to them, then six months later we look in and the same stuff is going on.”
—Jane Wagner (b. 1935)