My dear Friend!
Only two words in answer to your kind lines received this morning. . . . Now to serious matters!
I have no further news from Brandt. Of his competency I have not the slightest doubt; I should like to see him as the real director of the artistic management of the building also, for he it is who, apart from myself, possesses a real understanding of the matter. I am very anxious to see now if he will answer my invitation and put in his appearance. His demands are high, and yet I know enough to judge that he has the strange, difficult, and complicated task. If, at my first estimate, I calculated the provisional building at a hundred thousand thalers, I allowed him also another hundred thousand for machinery and decorations. We can, in any case, abide by his estimates, as the decorations, as such, are calculated unnecessarily high at fifty thousand thalers.
If I reserve now the third one hundred thousand for orchestra and singers—which eventually will not cost so much—I shall still have a reserve fund for deficits in the building or other parts of the work. It is important now that we limit the building in order that here, at least approximately, we keep within the one hundred thousand thalers; this can be done less by limiting the dimensions, than by reducing any unnecessary solidity, as it is, after all, only planned to be a provisional structure.
These are my views which I offer for friendly consideration at the renewed deliberations on this subject, which will undoubtedly be caused by the arrival of Brandt. . . .
Cordial greetings from myself and my wife, who entertains the greatest respect for you.
Yours faithfully,
Richard Wagner.
Source: The Story of Bayreuth as Told in the Bayreuth Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Caroline V. Kerr (Small, Maynard and Company, 1912), No. 22