Wolfgang Wagner of the World into Music"). Wolfgang Wagner Wolfgang Wagner (30 August 191921 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
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,