I have now been obliged to surrender every one of my ideally conceived works to a public stage which I recognise as radically immoral, and I have to ask myself very seriously whether I am not to save at least this last and holiest of my works from a like fate—the career of a common opera. I can no longer ignore the decision in view of the very subject and content of my Parsifal. As a matter of actual fact, can and should a drama, plainly presenting on the stage the highest mysteries of the Christian faith, be performed in the course of an ordinary operatic repertory in theatres such as ours, and before a public such as ours? I really would not blame our Church authorities if they were to raise a very legitimate protest against the representation of the most sacred mysteries upon the very same boards on which, the day before and after, frivolity displays itself at its ease before a public which is only attracted by frivolity. With a very right sense of this, I called Parsifal a "Sacred Dramatic Festival." Therefore I must try to consecrate one stage to it, and this can only be at my unique Dramatic Festival Theatre in Bayreuth. There, and there alone, should Parsifal be performed for ever. Never shall Parsifal be offered in any other theatre for the "amusement" of the public. To make sure of this is the one thing that occupies me and drives me to seek for ways and means of securing this destiny for my work.
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 720