Wednesday, June 28:
R. had a good night, although he had some very vivid dreams. He reads Bismarck’s speeches and, as we are driving to the theater, tells me how wretched and unworthy he feels the left-wing hissing of these speeches to be. In the theater the transformation scenery for the third act is rehearsed again, there seems not to be enough music, but finally it all fits, and R. willingly accepts a suggestion made by Humperdinck. Then the positioning of Titurel is tried out, the placing of the benches, the arrangement of the orchestra - all kinds of things, in fact! "What a fantastic place to be, a theater like this!" says R., who is enjoying all the activity, in spite of the difficulties. I feel as if I am in a dream, and cannot understand how I came to be granted the good fortune of being permitted to stand beside him and share it with him! On our return home we find Herr Winkelmann’s assurance that he will be here in time, and Herr Gudehus also announces his arrival; Frau Materna, on the other hand, wants to visit her mother first, which inspires R. to send her a telegram saying that those who are not present at the first rehearsals cannot in all fairness expect to sing in the first performances. He is pleased that, despite Yogi’s withdrawal, he has three tenors, "each one better than the last - or at any rate two better than the one!" In the evening he continues reading Prinzessin Brambilla to us, and the conversation between Ciarlatano and the German, which he finds very pleasing, reminds him, in connection with masks, of a letter (Nov. 6, 1795) in which W. v. Humboldt enlarges upon Greek literature. R. agrees with him about its "sketchiness," also the difference between character and individuality, but he does not agree with me when I tell him that this way of apprehending the Greeks as writers (Humboldt does not mention Aeschylus) ought surely to have been superseded now, following his own writings on the subject.
Thursday, June 29:
R. had a good night, but a letter from the theater director in Vienna first thing in the morning vexes him: Herr Furstner is again claiming royalties on Tannhauser. I then have to search through boxes for the papers, and I write to the lawyer Simson, who handled the case. At 12 o’clock R. has another worry: he goes through the role of Parsifal with poor Jager and finds him completely unsuitable! . . . The first festival visitor - Miss Tilton from America - has arrived and is our guest at lunch today. She finds R. looking aged somewhat and, oblivious of the effect she is having on me, tells me so! ... At 4 o’clock we drive up to the theater, lighting rehearsal. The need to repeat the mournful music is a real grief to R.! We stay in the restaurant with the children and eat there for the first time; in spite of the wet weather, all the bad and distressing things, R. is nevertheless cheerful. But we soon return home and finish up the evening with conversation on subjects of all sorts. An orchestra player (contra-bassoon), who played under R. at Weber’s funeral and was also here for the laying of the foundation stone, starts off by giving us pleasure but then feels upset. We do not quite understand why people tell him such things when there is nothing he can do about it, and R. says, "The violent urge of foolishness to make its presence known." There is also much friendly and considerate talk about Jouk.’s character, but above all about the difficulties with the transformation scenery!