Dear Herr Neumann,
I have heard nothing from you since you left Danzig. I hope that Hanover, too, was a success: did you perform in the Court Theatre there? If so, how did you manage to reach an agreement with Hülsen? You have my approval in advance for all that you do: you know the trust that I place in you, and that if ever I have any misgivings about what you are doing, it is because I have your interests at heart. It is in this spirit that I would advise you to forget about Paris, at least for the time being: not even London will ever reward your labours, but America certainly would if you follow the system adopted in Germany and announce only one cycle in each place.
I set the greatest store by Berlin. I have no doubt but that you could successfully put on a whole winter season there: but it would then be important to pay the greatest possible attention to correctness and general excellence, and to the manner and style of the performances. Nothing cursory or makeshift in the sets; greatest possible care with the staging and acting, where it will not be sufficient to rely upon traditions already existing in Vienna and Leipzig, but where you will have to learn from the lessons that were to be gained from my recent performances of “Parsifal” in Bayreuth.
From what I have heard, you already have an eye on one of the theatres in Berlin for the performances there. The architect Brückwald also told me that you had asked him to draw up plans for a genuine Wagner Theatre in Berlin, faithfully modelled on the one in Bayreuth, and I should happily give my consent to his splendid idea of adding a second tier of boxes to the so-called Princes’ Gallery in Bayreuth and of slightly raising half the seats in the stalls so as to introduce a differential price structure there.
I am prepared to support you in this undertaking in any way necessary - but this you know already. But I do not know how to reply to your recent and repeated wish that you be allowed to include “Parsifal” in the performances announced by this theatre of yours, since I have already explained my views on the subject in the most explicit terms possible. “Parsifal” can only ever be a part of what I have created in Bayreuth, and my festival theatre there will present this one work alone in a production that is to be repeated there year after year. This isolation is conditioned by the whole conception of the subject itself. My Bayreuth creation stands or falls with “Parsifal”. Of course, this creation will pass away with my death, for I know of no one, now or in the future, who could continue my work in the spirit of its creator. If my strength - which on occasions such as these is subjected to the severest strain - fails me before I actually die, so that I cannot concern myself with these performances, I should of course have to think of means of keeping my work as pure as possible for the world. If, by then, you and your Wagner Theatre have achieved the necessary standard and can maintain it by dint of constant improvement and the exclusive production of all my earlier works, stage dedication festivals could well be entrusted to this theatre, too, at special periods, and in this spirit “Parsifal”, too, might be ceded to your theatre, and to your theatre alone. - On the basis of today’s communication you may care to discuss this matter in confidence with such persons as you require to set up your theatre: but I should be compelled to withdraw all I have said, if ever a word of this were made public: you know the worthless and malicious way in which our newspaper reporters avail themselves of such information, and you cannot expect me to throw away my Bayreuth creation, which I have gained at the price of such unspeakable effort, by allowing it to be destroyed by vulgarity. -
Would you be kind enough to ask your secretary to let me know briefly how much of my advance has now been paid back out of the receipts you have sent me since then? It is simply a question of ascertaining my present financial position.
And now it remains only for me to offer you my very best wishes, my praise and my gratitude! I am still suffering from the effects of nervous exhaustion to which I can hope to put an end only by lasting and undisturbed rest. I am doing all I can to make this possible, but all it needs is a single letter from that insane man Batz, for ex., to throw my entire organism into disarray. - But let us hope for the best!
Every good wish to you and the whole of the Nibelung empire under your sway!
Yours,
Richard Wagner
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 498