Saturday, August 3:
R. sings a cantilena from I Puritani and remarks that Bellini wrote melodies lovelier than one’s dreams. The melody recalls Rubini to him, how wonderfully he sang it, and he observes: “Our German singers have to go about it in an entirely different way, because they have not got this gift. Because of what is denied them, they must aspire to unheard-of things, like Wieland, who came to fly on account of his missing feet.”
After breakfast R. glances through Jordan’s Nibelungen and has to laugh at a naive piece of stealing: Jordan writes of “Ortrud the Frisian,” whereas R. invented the name of Ortrud and made her a Frisian.
R. gets the idea of changing the title of his Götterdämmerung to Göttergericht, for he has just read in a recent essay that Ragna Rökr means “judgment of the gods.” He says: “The Twilight of the Gods sounds very fine if it is clear beyond a doubt what the word ‘twilight’ really means; it sounds mysterious. But if the meaning is doubtful, then the title is not precise enough. The Judgment of the Gods would be very good, since Brünnhilde is in fact sitting in judgment over them.”
Vocal exercises with the tenor; unpleasant revelations of character in Herr R[ubinstein]. In the evening went through the last scene of Die Walküre.
We talk about the Shakespearean theater and the participation of the audience, by whom the actors were surrounded, and R. says one can tell from Shakespeare’s characters that they were being viewed from all sides, because they are so detailed, whereas in Greek tragedy the figures are like silhouettes.