Swiss branch of the Wagner clan

Verena Naegele and Sibylle Ehrismann show the life of Franz Wilhelm Beidler, Richard Wagner's first grandson.

Isolde with her son Franz Wilhelm and husband Franz Philipp Beidler in Bayreuth ca. 1905

Isolde was the first, illegitimate daughter of Richard and Cosima Wagner. In 1900, Isolde married the Swiss conductor Franz Philipp Beidler, and one year later Franz Wilhelm, Wagner's first grandson, was born in Bayreuth. In 1914, Isolde lost a paternity suit in order to be recognized as Wagner's legitimate daughter.

Franz Wilhelm Beidler moved to Berlin in 1921, married the Jewish woman Ellen Gottschalk and experienced the Weimar Republic as an active socialist. He had to emigrate to Zurich in 1934. As secretary of the Swiss Writers' Association in Zurich, he shaped its history until 1970. Beidler's biography is closely linked to the history of Richard Wagner and the Bayreuth Festival.

The exhibition, which is being realized in cooperation with the City of Bayreuth, shows the causes, background and course of the "Beidler Affair", which took its course with Wagner's personal involvement.

The exhibition by the musicologists is on display Verena Naegele and Sibylle Ehrismann from April 17 to September 7 at the Zurich City Archives, and will also be on display in Bayreuth in 2014. A book on the exhibition will be published in June as part of the Zurich Festival.

 

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