My dear and respected friend,
It is only fitting that I should first address myself to you, the most active and efficient founder and supporter of a society intended to promote my proposed stage festival, now that it is a question of taking a decisive step which may more appropriately be carried out by some sympathetic and well-tried friend of my enterprise than by me myself, who must regard this undertaking as peculiarly his. Powerful assistance has now become necessary if the work that has been begun is to be brought to a swift conclusion; and a swift conclusion is of the essence, because the enterprise depends upon my own soundness of bodily health. In the space of two years we have reached the point where the more immediate friends of my art have raised the sum of one hundred thousand thalers: with this money we have laid a permanent foundation for the entire undertaking by erecting a festival theatre whose structural solidity will ensure that it remains usable for time beyond telling. But now, at the very moment when specific commissions would need to be signed for work to begin on the stage machinery and scenery, the resources of the undertaking’s existing supporters have come to an end, progress is necessarily delayed, and the enterprise will enter a critical phase unless some other authority come to our aid in a decisive fashion. -
My local committee of management is of the opinion that the undertaking must be supported at all costs, to the point where it is finally about to be realized, and that we may confidently expect to cover the expenses that have been incurred out of proceeds from the support that will come pouring in for so extraordinary an artistic event. In this sense all that we should have needed was a sufficient guarantee to enable us to raise the necessary loans and ensure the means whereby to continue the work that is already begun. In order to secure such a guarantee I recently approached my exalted benefactor, the King of Bavaria, but for reasons that remain unclear to me His Majesty turned down my request.
You know that we have recently begun to turn to particularly wealthy and well-disposed friends in our search for such a guarantee. But even if help, however fleeting, were to come from this quarter, I am now resolved to seek our salvation in so important a matter in the one place which can impart to it the only truly appropriate dignity.
I am thinking here of the “Reich”, although it cannot of course have remained unknown to you that until now I have always recoiled from the thought of seeing my enterprise and the act of cultural volition that lies behind it debated by the members of the Reichstag, since there is not a single man among them whom I thought capable of offering a convincing explanation of the true significance of this undertaking, or of defending it in the face of the shameless disparagement to which it has been subjected by a press which, whether great or small, is as powerful as it is ignorant. - On the contrary, I have now had the idea of offering our victorious Emperor the first performances of this work of mine as a quinquennial celebration to mark the glorious peace concluded with France in 1871. — It would be a question here of comparing my own Nibelung drama — which I should perform along entirely novel lines in a way that matched the uniqueness of the German character - with the festival performances with which, in accord with a less than laudable custom, such sublime occasions are usually celebrated: I should have thought that acceptance of my offer would at the same time express recognition of an important concept in German culture. — But it cannot be my place to hold forth on this subject in a personal and forceful attempt to persuade; rather must I seek advocates among the friends of my art and the patrons of the enterprise, advocates who, armed with the detailed instructions which I myself have drawn up as a guide, would be able to shed the necessary light on the significance of my project, and do so, moreover, in the quarter that matters.
In this context, as in others, it is a source of great encouragement to be able to choose you, my dear and honoured friend, as chief advocate with your own reigning prince, the Grand Duke of Baden, a gentleman for whom I have the highest respect. It was this paragon of German princes who received me and my artistic enterprises with truly enlightened kindness when, after a long period of exile, I first set foot on German soil again in 1861. Since that time I have had no reason to think that the magnanimous sentiments that greeted me then might have grown any cooler, and I believe therefore that you will find His Royal Highness well-prepared and seriously disposed if you approach him now with a request that he negotiate decisive help along the lines already indicated, and do so, moreover, in the name of all who have already lent my undertaking their energetic support, and among whom it gives me particular pleasure to number His Royal Highness himself.
It would not be appropriate for me to indicate more detailed measures which the Grand Duke might adopt in pursuance of this course, in the event that he decides in its favour, since it goes without saying that the co-operation of His Imperial and Royal Highness the Crown Prince of Germany must immediately strike my illustrious patron as the most effective course of action for him to adopt. I should venture only to suggest that the Grand Dukes of Saxe-Weimar and Mecklenburg, together with the Duke of Dessau, all of whom have already taken a personal interest in my enterprise, would presumably be inclined to collaborate here.
If I now wished to describe in detail what I imagine will be the crowning achievement of all my efforts and desires on behalf of so mighty an undertaking, it would be to secure by this means a commission from the German Emperor, under the terms of which I would be granted support in the sum of one hundred thousand thalers, i.e. one third of the total cost, in return for which I would present three complete performances of my stage festival “The Ring of the Nibelung” in the festival theatre specially built for this purpose in Bayreuth, and present them, moreover, during the summer of 1876 as part of the first quinquennial celebrations of the peace that was concluded with France.
Since it ought to be a simple matter for you to indicate in plain figures how many seats the persons concerned would be entitled to in consequence of this, basing your calculations on previous Patrons’ entitlements, I need not go into further details in this letter concerning the business aspect of the matter, but would beg you only, in conjunction with our valued friends in Mannheim, to take the first step towards realizing the idea that I have in mind, an idea which I freely admit originated with you.
In respectful friendship, I am
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. 421