As I can do little good by my presence in Munich during the period of the preliminary study of The Mastersingers, I propose to return to the tranquillity of my Lucerne retreat at the end of the week. [...] I hope to be quiet there and resume work on the score of Siegfried, and so ensure its completion within the year.
As regards the future performance of this work, which my exalted Patron has followed with such keen interest, my attention has been caught by the news that Herr von Perfall has expressed a wish that the Royal approval should be applied for for the reconstruction of the stage of the Royal Court Theatre—a piece of work long recognised as necessary and to be put in hand during the coming summer. Not only is this reconstruction needed to put the Munich Court Theatre on a level with other German theatres of the better type, but it should, as Herr von Perfall hopefully gave me to understand, also put the stage of the Court Theatre in a condition which would answer fairly well for the scenic problems set in my Nibelung dramas. As a consequence it might not be impossible, should His Majesty wish it, for the separate parts of the cycle to be experimentally performed, following each other year by year. For example, a beginning might be made next year with The Rhinegold, followed the year after by The Valkyrie, and the whole work thus successively produced. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 630