My esteemed Friend!
Many thanks for your last letter! It does not occur to me to doubt the genuine success of our great undertaking as long as you remain faithful to me.
You surely understood me correctly. Not for a moment did I believe in the double-dealing of my Bayreuth friends, but it frightened me to know that the odious system by which everything in Bayreuth is biased by Munich, had got a footing.
On the contrary, had I given up Bayreuth I should have given up the entire undertaking. They are so grown together that so far as my great Stage Festival Play has as yet attracted attention, it is already inseparably connected with the name of Bayreuth.
It is gratifying to me, above all things, that you, dear friend, remain indefatigable, and that, on the whole, you seem to be convinced of the good prospects. Certainly I can see that it is going ahead about us; and I, who have such boundless patience, wish for nothing more but that we may be given plenty of time and not rushed. Everything will certainly develop; it grows and matures—only, everything must be kept clean.
I quite agree with your ideas in regard to the division of the necessary financial resources. More exactly expressed, it is as follows:
1. The theatre building to be considered absolutely provisional; it would please me if it were entirely of wood, like the gymnasiums and Sängerfest halls: no further solidity than what is necessary to insure against collapse. Therefore economise—no ornamentation. In this building we are only giving the outline of the idea, and hand it over to the Nation to perpetuate it as a monumental structure.
2. Machinery and decorations all ideal, in relation to the inner art-work—absolutely perfect. Here no economy; everything designed for permanency, nothing temporary.
3. Singers and musicians to receive only compensation, but no (salary) “payments.” He who does not come to me from glory and enthusiasm can stay where he is. A lot of use to me a singer would be who came to me only for a silly salary! Such a person could never satisfy my artistic demands. This, my dear friend, is one of my miracles, by which I show to the world how a personnel is secured for the performance of my work; and my friends must believe in this. It is naturally quite different when a Court Intendant has to deal with such people; then there is the very devil to pay, and it is just this which I understand how to control. I need about twenty leading and secondary persons; they must not cost me more than thirty thousand thalers for the two months, or otherwise I can have nothing to do with them. A hundred musicians, at a monthly compensation of fifty thalers, would make at the most ten thousand thalers. I vouch for this, for this is my empire.
It is quite different when one has to deal with builders, carpenters, wood, canvas, lead, brushes, and machinery: here I have no power, but can only arrange and give orders. Here only money can accomplish anything.
Further matters can be discussed quietly at a more convenient time. I am so extraordinarily happy to have gained a man like you as a friend, my dear Feustel. This is more comforting for my future than if someone were hammering and chiselling on “my” house to-day.
Let me know when you think it necessary for me to be in Bayreuth; I consider myself now as entirely dependent upon you. . . .
Devotedly yours,
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. 24