Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of May 15, 1870

Overview

Levi’s dignified refusal to conduct Die Walkuere arrives on a blazing spring day alive with Fidi’s babble and Wagner’s sketching of Waltraute’s narration. Hoffmann’s tale delights the family and gives Wagner a way to think about civilization’s pressure on nature. The lawyer’s inability to predict the Berlin proceedings reopens practical uncertainty, while the evening’s insects and growth give the day a strong sense of natural abundance.

Content

Sunday, May 15:

Very seemly letter from the conductor Levi, who has refused to conduct Die Walküre. Gloriously fine day; burning sunshine; to the sounds of Fidi’s “Dadadada” R. sketches part of Waltraute’s narration (he “sends off the ravens”). Family lunch in the best of spirits.

Afterward R. reads Hoffmann’s “Das fremde Kind” to me and the elder children; great enjoyment in this fine tale, which R. says expresses very well the pressures of civilization, the breach between Nature and culture. Visit from our lawyer, who does not understand the procedure in Berlin and cannot at all foresee when it will end. Letter to Prof. Nietzsche. Fine evening, cicadas, cockchafers, great exuberance of growth, sap and strength everywhere.