Cosima Wagner

Daughter of Franz Liszt, Cosima spent her childhood with governesses and her grandmother, married conductor Hans von Bülow in 1857 in what became a loveless arrangement, then began an affair in 1863 with Richard Wagner, 24 years older. They married in 1870. Wagner called her his principal inspiration for later works, especially Parsifal. When he died in 1883 she took command of the Bayreuth Festival, expanded the repertoire to ten operas, and made it a pillar of musical theatre - but locked the productions to Wagner's originals, rejected innovation, and steered the festival toward an antisemitic identity that persisted long past her 1907 retirement. She died in Bayreuth in 1930, months before the Nazi era confirmed the ideology she'd embedded, leaving a legacy equal parts salvation and stain.