Dear Richter,
Costume designs for the “Rhinegold” - presumably from the Royal Court Theatre intendancy - have been sent to me here today, and I make so bold as to return them to you herewith, with the request that you forward these sketches to the Royal Court Theatre intendancy together with the following report.
Once again it is an occasion for regret that the author himself has not been consulted until so late a stage with regard to his wishes in so highly problematical a matter as that of designing costumes for a subject such as this. Had people done so, they would have discovered that the experiments attempted by Herr Echter in the case of the frescoes in the royal palace could in no way be regarded as a definitive solution to this question, but that it must rather be left to me - when it finally came to arranging for the actual performance of my work to take place — to insist upon more detailed studies with the aim of finding characteristic costumes for this ancient Germanic world of gods. The most imaginative painters and archaeologists would naturally have to be consulted here. In general, my initial objection to the sketches I have been sent is that they show no sense of invention and that (as copies of Echter’s frescoes) they include only Greek costumes (accepted there as an expedient, for want of anything better), with peplum etc., a kind of costume which reveals everything except Germanic gods. It would therefore be advisable to enquire into the character of the costumes worn by Germanic gods in Roman times — more especially on the basis of allusions in Tacitus: even some slight allusion would be sufficient to provide an intelligent and inventive mind with analogous forms, which could then lead to other ideas. This would be a task for the Royal Academy of Art. Also, I desire less nakedness and more actual clothing, and no savages from the Prussian coat of arms for the giants: the gods should have attributes, e.g. Froh a sickle, Fricka a distaff, Freia as goddess of flowers & fruit similarly correspondingly characterized. No gold jewelry! that surely goes without saying in a piece where gold first has to be discovered and made known to the gods, etc.
Would you be so kind as to read out this report - perhaps at the next meeting, and perhaps persuade Herr Hallwachs to send me further information in this matter.
If it were still possible to shelve this entire undertaking for the present, I should welcome this as by far the best solution.
Sincere good wishes from
your devoted servant
Richard Wagner.
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 381