My dearly beloved lord and benefactor,
The revered testimony to my exalted patron’s ever-familiar grace and favour which I recently received in the form of your excessively kind letter filled me, as every other attestation of your love and favour has so often filled me, with almost melancholy misgivings as to whether and in what way I might be able to prove myself worthy of such inestimable good fortune. I then turn my mind to this or that means by which to afford you some trifling pleasure. Would it - I then ask myself - give you pleasure to hear good news of my own prosperity and that of my cause? Time and again this question throws me back upon myself, and it requires the expenditure of all my reserves of strength to remain equal to the extraordinary exertions which I must necessarily undergo if I am not to abandon my work, which is as much as to say, if I am not to abandon life itself. What really consumes me in my present situation is the fact that I often have to cancel - nay, often have to deny - these difficulties which it causes me such pain to surmount: there is nothing that people are more eager to descry than an admission on my part that these difficulties exist, for then they may hold out both me and my whole enterprise as a foolhardy venture. This is the support that my fellow men give me! I should long ago have turned my back on them if, on the other hand, I had not received such elevating support from a quarter where I had scarcely expected it: hopes now rest upon me which I cannot simply reject with a gesture of cold contempt. But the circles in which this support has been shown me are themselves without real power: the activities of these societies move me, it is true, and place me under an obligation, but their efforts are incapable of raising sufficient funds for me and my enterprise. The princes have shown themselves wholly dismissive, or else their help is sparing to a degree. The richer aristocracy no longer has a soul that is German, and they squander their money on Jewish and Jesuit enterprises. And our stock-market millionaires will have nothing to do with me, unless I transfer my enterprise to Berlin or Vienna, in which case up to a million gulden could be placed at my disposal. The only really effective support has proved to be the untiring efforts of two influentially placed women, the wife of Minister von Schleinitz in Berlin, and Countess Dönhoff (a Neapolitan princess by birth) in Vienna. These two women drew up subscription lists among their own circles of friends, and it is these, almost without exception, which have placed me in the position of being able to keep the enterprise going; but the fact that the Sultan and Khedive of Egypt have had to be enlisted for their support was certainly bound to strike me as curious. However, when it came to carrying out the undertaking in practical terms, I found my chief support in the extraordinary co-operation of the local mayor Herr Muncker, and, above all, of the incomparably capable banker Friedrich Feustel, whom I have appointed to my committee of management, and to whose honesty and well-tried experience the material supervision and control of the whole undertaking have been entrusted. The paucity of means placed at our disposal did not permit us to begin the building work last year with the energy necessary to expedite it once the workforce could be increased when funds became plentiful. This year alone we could not have brought the building work to the point we still expect to have reached by the autumn if I myself had not set out last winter and, at the cost of personal sacrifices of every description, arranged several concerts in the larger cities which brought in the additional sum of some 40,000 fl. needed for our wholly inadequate building fund. But I cannot continue on this course without wearing myself out prematurely. In these circumstances we are unable to commission the stage equipment and machinery, or to construct the scenery, without raising a loan. My extremely cautious and conscientious friend Feustel sees nothing worrying in this, because he recognizes that the announcement that my great undertaking is to take place has already aroused the most wide-reaching interest, and that this will assure the performances an unusually large influx of visitors once they finally do take place. He is not in the least concerned that numerous, not to say over-numerous, applications from intending visitors, at every price moreover, will only be received in the year of the performances themselves; indeed, he even thinks it a good idea to consider increasing the number of seats in the theatre. This optimistic prospect is based not on mere assumptions, but rather on declarations of intent that we have already received from America, for ex., but also from Russia and North Germany, and according to which the people concerned have declared their commitment to applying when the time comes, and of not being deterred by the price. Our most important concern therefore appears to be to keep all of our preparations going without interruption. In this regard our initial consideration must be for the stage technician and scene painter: in view of the long delays in completing the shell of the building, delays exacerbated, moreover, by great local difficulties (including the need to construct a canal), they have had to declare themselves unable to do any preliminary work this year, although these preparations are absolutely indispensable if their work on the production proper is to be completed in time for the performances to take place next year. We had to admit that they were perfectly right, the more so because, in the case of our excellent technician Karl Brandt from Darmstadt, it is a question of entirely new inventions and the careful testing of his innovations. And so, we had to accept this, and postpone the performances for a year, until 1875. Accordingly, next year, 1874, the stage machinery and scenery will be taken in hand and tested; at the same time the singers whom I have chosen will visit me individually in the course of the summer, in order to learn their parts in the first place from the purely musical aspect. On the first of June 1875 everyone involved in the production will then assemble here and spend two months rehearsing every day with the stage machinery, scenery and orchestra, in order to prepare for three complete performances in the month of August.
Only on the basis of these arrangements is there any possibility of our realizing the project in practical terms. But even this is possible only if we start work on the stage equipment late this autumn, and commission both stage machinery and scenery on a fixed contractual tender. In view of the fact that the additional contributions to our funds have almost dried up, more especially during the summer months, and are scarcely sufficient to complete the shell of the building, we are obliged therefore, as already mentioned, to borrow capital which we shall pay back from the Patrons’ moneys that are still to come in, and on which we are paying interest out of certain surpluses that have been made possible out of our savings - and all this if we are to stick even to 1875. Herr Feustel is of the opinion that there will be no question of any difficulties if we raise a loan, as long as a substantial, but merely formal, guarantee can be obtained, since our enterprise already represents a demonstrable capital expenditure of 100,000 thalers. Accordingly, my managers cherish the wish that a highly placed patron might be pleased to grant us this formal guarantee, which, as I say, is only of moral, but by no means material, significance.
In the circumstances, therefore, I venture to entreat Your Majesty, as my only true patron and tireless benefactor, to send your Court Secretary, Court Councillor Düfflipp, to Bayreuth, in order that he might then be in a position to scrutinize everything that relates to my great undertaking and, at the same time, gain a precise insight into the strictly businesslike nature of a concern which is entrusted to my committee of management.
It is solely the exceedingly kind exhortation which my exalted protector recently asked Court Councillor Düfflipp to convey to me, and the infinitely salutary assurances with which he was able to accompany that exhortation which encourage me to make this entreaty, just as they have laid me under an obligation to submit to my gracious patron the detailed report included herewith.
I said at the outset that what was so wearing about my present situation is that I have to conceal, and even deny, the difficulties which it involves. Until now I thought I was similarly obliged to show the selfsame reserve towards my exalted friend, for it is his forbearance on which I must make the greatest claim. When I first informed a number of friends of this plan of mine, they expressed the opinion that it must be possible to obtain the sum which I needed in a short space of time, whereupon I promised in turn to bring about the performances within that same space of time, namely as soon as the entire sum that I needed had been placed at my disposal. The extraordinary nature of our undertaking has now had to pass through every stage of practical experience: that this experience has proved the success of our undertaking to be perfectly possible in general terms is, in itself, an outcome of the most encouraging significance; but it is equally undeniable that our plan will have to be modified in terms of the timing of the performances. When the nature of this experience is closely considered, it is clear that our first concern must be to bring forward the timing of the promised performances: for in the light of these same experiences, no one who takes account, for ex., of the unprecedented income brought in by the few concerts which I arranged for the benefit of our enterprise, doubts for a moment but that support for them, and their success, will not amply cover all our costs.
Thus do I turn to my great friend, whose work I myself have now uniquely become, and I do so above all with the heartfelt request for a further extension of his heavenly forbearance!
Everything else will, and must, take care of itself, as long as I can remain alive and healthy, and, above all, maintain my own forbearance. -
Indeed, my exalted friend, I too have often had serious thoughts about my “Parzival”. It will be the pinnacle of all my achievements. How sweetly familiar is the feeling that overcomes me when I think that you yourself share directly in the knowledge of this profound secret, that you are its co-creator! It is as though I am inspired to write this work in order to preserve the world’s profoundest secret, the truest Christian faith, nay, to awaken that faith anew. And for the sake of this immense task that it is reserved for me to accomplish, I have felt obliged to use my Nibelung drama to build a Castle of the Grail devoted to art, far removed from the common byways of human activity: for only there, in Monsalvat, can the longed-for deed be revealed to the people, to those who are initiated into its rites, not in those places where God may not show Himself beside the idols of day without His being blasphemed.
Thus, my glorious King, do I proclaim the thoughts that I cherish for our “Parzival”! -
And now I would ask only that you be kind enough to forgive me this long and, in the main, most tiresome letter! It is your kindness, and the heartfelt depth of your sympathy which time and again encourage me to believe that I myself must after all be one of the elect!
With the humblest of greetings my loyal and noble wife prostrates herself at your feet: and with the most abundant prayers for your safe keeping we both gaze up at you in gratitude.
In deepest reverence, I remain unto death my sublime friend’s own true one.
Uniquely yours,
Richard Wagner.
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 419