Bayreuth Festival named by Bavaria's culture minister, Thomas Goppel, to take over the Festival. They were to take up their duties immediately, since their father had announced his retirement at the conclusion of the 2008 Festival. They were chosen ahead of the pair of their cousin, Nike Wagner, and Gerard Mortier, who had placed a late bid for the directorship on 24 August. The conductor Christian Thielemann has agreed to act as chief adviser to the new directors, effectively taking the role of music director of the Festival. The festival draws thousands of Wagner fans to Bayreuth every summer. It is very
Ernst August Wagner once by drowning himself and by jumping off a bridge, though both attempts failed, because he was, according to his own words, "too weak". In the following years his wife bore four more children, concluding in July 1909 with Rudolph Alfred. Wagner was said to have been unhappy about the births of his children and complained about the financial stress of feeding his family; he was seemingly indifferent to the interruption of his birthday in 1909 by infant Rudolph's death. Some time in 1906 or 1907, thinking that the people from Mühlhausen had passed on their knowledge about his crime,