My dearest Friend!
How right you were to insist, above all, that the artistic details in the execution of my undertaking should be the chief consideration, and that our slender and painfully accrued funds should not be wasted upon the exterior of our theatre! The very justifiable warning, which was moreover accompanied by a side glance at our treasury, immediately decided me to limit the excavations to such as are absolutely indispensable for the immediate environment of the theatre.
In any case I wish to return to the city the entire piece of ground reaching from the theatre terrace to the extreme front entrance, with the serious suggestion that this large piece of ground be used entirely according to the wisdom of the City Council. If needs be, the chaussée already built can be used profitably as a street. I shall content myself, then, with the still very considerable space which now forms a plateau surrounding the theatre; the entrance and exit can take place by way of the chaussée leading to Bürgerreuth. I found yesterday, in a conversation with Herr Runckwitz, that this could easily be accomplished.
The young building master told me also that about five thousand florins have already been expended on the excavations; I wish now that the contracts (with especial consideration for certain contractors) be annulled, and then I would set aside about two thousand to three thousand florins for the levelling of the plateau, so that the entire work of excavation would cost, for the present at least, only eight thousand florins.
For, in the first place, I have to keep in mind the rehearsals this summer. If the next concert in Vienna succeeds according to my expectations, then I may well claim the credit of having created the necessary financial basis for these rehearsals. It shall now be my chief concern to hold this intact for these rehearsals; on the other hand, the fact that the city of Bayreuth will have to transform a large piece of ground into a park for the Sunday promenades of its citizens, cannot be laid to my ambition.
In the same way I shall refrain from having anything further to do with the agitation concerning the hotel question. In response to my very first inquiry in regard to the accommodation of strangers, I received the assurance of the city of Bayreuth, through my representative, that this question would be satisfactorily solved, and it was only upon receiving this promise that I decided upon Bayreuth as the home of my Festival Play.
I now rely upon the sense of honour of my new fellow citizens, and in the future shall only keep in view the purely artistic success of my undertaking.
In any case I shall present my work to the German public in three successive performances; as to whether out of this a permanent institution will be formed or not for the benefit of the city of Bayreuth will depend largely upon what Bayreuth does in the matter.
I hope, dearest friend, that you agree with me in my view of the situation, as well as in my decisions concerning the same, and in this assumption I beg of you to suggest a way by which my appeal to the city to take back part of the ground given me may best be accomplished, as well as the solution of the question concerning the annulling of the contracts for the excavations.
I hope I shall see you before my departure, which, however, takes place to-morrow afternoon. In the meantime I greet you as ever.
Your deeply grateful
Richard Wagner.
(Saturday, May 2, 1875.)
The night in which my good Russ suddenly died.
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. 75