Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of May 19, 1870

Overview

Breakfast talk about Wallenstein leads Wagner back to his theories in Opera and Drama, especially the difficulty of exposition that informs without moving the audience. Cosima is distressed that months of preparation for Wagner’s birthday are being frustrated by external mishaps. Fidi’s recovery is the day’s clearest consolation amid illness, disappointment, and the lesson that outside forces cannot be controlled.

Content

Thursday, May 19:

R. said at breakfast that Wallenstein had brought back to his mind what he wrote in Opera and Drama about the nature of drama; to make something clear to the audience, one needs to put in so much which in fact leaves it unaffected. R. is indisposed, I bothered by things going wrong for his birthday; I have been working on it for about six months, and almost everything is letting me down; at such times our only help is the acknowledgment that we cannot control external influences! Fidi getting better.