Esteemed Sir and Friend!
I wish to express to you my sincere thanks for the alterations in your beautiful designs. Thereby the room of Hunding has become thoroughly in keeping with the demands of the dramatic action, and it is so excellent that I cannot find that it has forfeited anything of its character. No less have I to thank you for the space in front of the hall of the Gibichung on the banks of the Rhine.
The general effect will be magnificent; it is to be hoped that the level space of the front and middle stage is wide enough to accommodate the great number of persons required by the action which takes place here.
One wish I have always had, namely, to see the entrance of the hall in somewhat more of a straight or curved profile; here the decisive meeting of the chief catastrophe takes place. I have made the mistake of keeping, unconsciously, in view our—very incorrect—theatrical conventionalities, according to which, for example in Lohengrin, the portal of the minster is placed sufficiently to one side so that for a long time the action could take place on the steps.
This time I should like to have a concession on your part, according to which you would move the entire scene rather more from right to left, so that more would be seen of the hall and somewhat less of the Rhine. In this way:
[In the original is a drawing indicating this.]
from which we assume that we have here only a landing place on the river, while in the first and last act we look out upon the broad stream itself.
But it will be difficult for you to sacrifice anything here, for the picture, as you have given it, is unusually characteristic and beautiful.
Be indulgent and remain favourably disposed always to yours
Very 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. 58