The Wagner clan

by Jonathan Carr

Through two world wars, Nazi dictatorship and foreign occupation, the Wagner clan - Germany's most famous family - has played host to many of the greatest and ghastliest figures in the arts and politics. Its members have clung to the helm of the prestigious Bayreuth festival and have regularly battled one another like warriors in the music dramas they stage. Their story - with its jealousy, greed, passion and intrigue - is as riveting as any opera. Drawing on extensive research and interviews with the Wagners, Jonathan Carr has produced the first thorough and balanced history of this extraordinary clan and its circle. Beyond the human drama, though, this portrait shows how the family's history and that of Germany has intertwined, from well before the strenuous birth of Bismarck's Reich in 1871, through defeat, destruction and post-1945 economic rebirth, right up to the present day.