Sunday, June 30:
R. had an exciting night. He dreamed of a performance of Tannhäuser in Vienna in which Lulu and Boni were to have appeared, but it fell through; suddenly, after Elisabeth’s exit, he heard a cabaletta being sung which he had found inserted in the theater score and had cut. Speechless with rage, he leaped onto the stage and there encountered his sister-in-law, Elise Wagner, who said to him, “But it all sounds very lovely,” while he, searching desperately for words, at last said loudly and clearly, “You swine!” and woke up.
Talked at breakfast about the Spanish theater, the activity of the popular spirit, which in Italy never found expression, being too much tied down by academies, the seat of the church, and excavations of the ancient world. Popular trends such as produced Shakespeare in England.
Lulu in much pain. Bismarck, publicly denounced by the Pope, affords us pleasure; R. is wishing for an alliance between Rome, France, and Austria: “then perhaps we shall achieve a German church and put an end to the Habsburgs, that arrow in our flesh.” R. works. In the afternoon children’s party.
Letters from M. Muchanoff in Kassel: she invites me to visit her in Weimar and to visit my father, then my father would come to Bayreuth! M. M[eysenbug] writes from Munich, where Tristan was performed; I am always beset by bitter feelings when I think about these performances, which delight our friends, taking place in our absence. Prof. Nietzsche and Herr v. G. were also there. “N. had his tragic morsel dished up there,” says R., thinking of Tristan.