Sunday, July 9:
R. had a good night, though enlivened by wild dreams. Around 12:30 he goes to the rehearsal and makes the conductor jump by calling to him through the slot, "Don't shout so!" At lunch we have the three bass singers, and there is much gaiety. R. feels decidedly more at ease with his artists than with people from society. At 4:30 we drive through pouring rain to the first piano and voice rehearsal of the 2nd act. The Flowers (R. wishes them to be called that and not Flower Maidens, since this reminds one of flower sellers) are enchanting.
The big scene between Kundry and Parsifal will almost certainly never be done in the way he created it. R. complains about how insensitive the singers are to all there is in it, and he thinks of Schroder-Devrient, how she would have uttered the words So war es mein Kuss, der hellsichtig dich machte. Now the music has to do it all. As we were driving to the theater, he told me that, when he thought of his times in Zurich and Paris and then looked at all the life going on around him now, he felt literally like a magician. At supper he tells us that he is reading Hoffmann's Die Marquise de la Pivardiere with great interest, also a novel in the Tagblatt which likewise seems to be a genuine crime story.
In the evening he speaks in praise of the present Khedive of Egypt, Arabi Pasha, who is vigorously standing up to England and France, and gradually the evening moves on - strangely enough - to Strauss waltzes, during which R. recalls Penzing (Dommayer) and remarks how much more original the waltzes of the elder Strauss were, whereas the artistically more elaborate ones of his sons either are contrived or were greatly influenced by Chopin. We find it very touching when, at the end of the evening, Blandine complains of hardly ever seeing me.