Tuesday, May 30:
Rehearsal; Richter is here, and he and his wife eat with us. The rehearsal, at which R. demonstrates everything personally, has tired him very much, but his pleasure in Unger remains.
After lunch R. reflects on whether, in Das Rheingold, he should not make Wotan, as he greets Valhalla (“So neme ich die Burg”), flourish a sword, which Fafner has contemptuously thrown out of the Nibelung hoard because it is not made of gold. This becomes the sword which Wotan plunges into the ash tree; Alberich has had it forged for his fight against the giants and the gods.
Richter tells us that Herr Jauner did not understand with what reluctance R. agreed to give him Die Walküre; other composers are always glad, he said, when one performs their works! In the evening R. returns very tired from the swimming rehearsal. (Sultan Abdul-Aziz deposed and strangled, curious outcome of the conference between Andrassy, Gorchakov, and Bisigarc.)