[...] I staked twenty years of my life to found Bayreuth, simply because I associated a very far-reaching idea with that project. A Wagner Theatre in Berlin? Nothing could have been easier for me; nine years ago they offered me the funds to establish it. But the idea I sought to bring into the world could not have come to birth there. No, but that which I created here in seclusion (where people had to come to me) could, when brought to light, eventually be propagated elsewhere. But this propagation must be another's work. If you would undertake to be that other, you would find that I trust you. But it must be entirely your own affair, and I can do no more for you than put my works in your hands with privileges not accorded to any other manager.
It is not my money you need, is it, but my name? As I give you my works, you may give the theatre my name, but not amongst, or even at the head of, a list of others who are interested in it.
Berlin must be your enterprise, not mine. [...]
My much-esteemed friend, if you cannot establish a purely (shall we call it?) "Wagnerian" theatre—a task which I think would be extremely difficult!—rather give up the project entirely.
Parsifal is to be performed nowhere but in Bayreuth, and this for ideal reasons which my illustrious benefactor the King of Bavaria (for instance) saw so clearly that he has quite given up the idea of repeating the Bayreuth performances, even at the Munich Theatre. In view of these precedents, how can I dispose of Parsifal as you suggest! I ought not and I cannot allow it to be performed at other theatres unless a true "Wagner Theatre" were to arise, a sacred theatre which, moving from place to place, should propagate throughout the world the thing that I have cultivated and brought to pure perfection at my theatre in Bayreuth.—
If we cling firmly to these ideas for your enterprise, a time may come when I can entrust Parsifal not to any court or civic theatre but to a travelling Wagner Theatre. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 726