Most valued friend,
I have just sought out your letter again, not so much to reply to it but to tell you something in connection with it.
I am at the end of a so-called health cure, although - as such - I am expecting very little from it; nevertheless, I have to think about it to the extent of not subjecting myself to any undue strain.
And so I shall pass over all that I have had to go through ever since discovering that no summons or appeal on my part has succeeded in producing even the least inclination on the part of others to relieve me of the burden of last year’s festival deficit. I am now struggling under the weight of this burden, and have spent my last remaining savings on it, but - I am filled with a boundless indifference towards all the activities of my so-called Patrons and their societies.
This month I am planning to make one last attempt to unload the whole affair on to the Munich Court Theatre in order that - for the time being at least - I no longer need think of “stage festivals” (in my sense of the word). -
If I fail, I shall go to America, make provisions for my family, and - consider anything rather than return to Germany. -
But if the worst does not come to the worst after all, I am planning to use what remains of my life - since I have no alternative in the matter - in carrying out a certain idea of mine. I shall seek, on the most modest basis, to use my presence in Bayreuth to train conductors and dramatic singers. My provisional plan is so practical as to be very straightforward. I need four assistants who will have to be paid next to nothing. My immediate concern is to see that this happens. You are one of the four. My school could be opened as early as the end of this coming autumn. I hope you will find a way of allowing me to persuade you to come and live in Bayreuth - perhaps in the not too distant future.
How much do you need in order to get by - at a pinch? -
(This is all just between the two of us! That goes without saying!)
I shall be leaving here on the 5th of this month, and shall be in Seelisberg (Canton Uri) in Switzerland until the 15th, then Munich, Marienbad Hotel. -
Best wishes from
Your sincerely devoted
Richard Wagner
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 451