Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of June 6, 1881

Overview

Siegfried's birthday celebration draws fourteen guests to the table and produces instant comedy when the boy, hearing a toast begun in his honor, indignantly protests that he has not yet received any champagne. The afternoon brings a restless run-through of the first act of Parsifal in arrangement, stopping at Amfortas's outburst. Wagner closes the evening in fond spirits, relaying charming anecdotes about his son and musing that the boy has a look of Byron about him.

Content

Monday, June 6:

Siegfried, child of joy, child of peace!

Presentation of gifts at 2 o’clock. Afterwards, fourteen at lunch; R. asks who is to propose the toast, friend Feustel gets up, says a few words, which Siegfried interrupts with an alarmed cry: “I haven’t got any champagne yet!” Great amusement over this.

In the afternoon the first act is gone through in an arrangement by Herr Rub., only up to Amfortas’s outburst. Unfortunately, rather restless.

In the evening much about Siegfried, who, when his father tells him that it is rather absurd for him to have a gold chain, replies, “Perhaps you can take it back.” R. thinks he looks like Byron.