Munich (London post-mark), 8th April, 1865.
It appeared later that he was deeply engrossed in preparations for “Tristan’s” performance, his next letter—but a short invitation—bearing on the subject.
Dear Praeger: 15, 18, 22 May: Wonderfully fine representations of “Tristan” at Munich. Come, if you can, and write first. I should be heartily glad to know you present at them.
Yours,
Richard Wagner.
Munich, 7th May, 1865.
I found it impossible to be present at the “Tristan” performances, and was compelled to postpone my visit to the summer of the same year. On the 27th July, Madame von Bülow wrote to me for “her friend,” explaining that he was so much touched by the death of poor Schnorr (the Tristan of the recent performances), that he was unable to write any letters, but that Wagner would be at Munich up to the 8th August—though she “had advised Richard very strongly to retire to the mountains there to strengthen his nerves.”
CHAPTER XXIV.
1865-1883.
I WENT to Munich and found Wagner considerably depressed. “Tristan,” the work he evidently loved with no ordinary affection, had, after seven years of hoping against hope, but just been performed to his intense satisfaction, when the ideal impersonator dies. The happiness he had recently felt at the three “Tristan” performances, coupled with the publication of the piano scores of the “Walküre” and “Tristan” had, to an extent, kept his mind free. These events passed, and his friends departed, he fell into a desponding mood. Minna, his wife, was not there. This was a constant irritation to him. He affected to care nothing about it, but his references to her absence showed how it annoyed and preyed upon him. Then was he placed in delicate relations with the young king of Bavaria. Louis constituted Wagner his adviser—his Mentor. Questions of state were submitted to him. The king’s personal advisers were aware of this, and resented it. Wagner knew of the intrigues against him. He sincerely yearned for quietude; all the more because he instinctively felt the coming storm. He showed me all the letters that his royal devotee had written to him, and this I can testify, that breathing as they did the fervid adoration of a cultured, highly gifted youth for a genius, Wagner on his side felt no less intense admiration and affection for the “god-like” king. So great was the influence it was assumed Wagner possessed over the monarch, that his good-will was sought by all classes of petitioners for the royal favour.
The house inhabited by Richard Wagner was detached, an uncommon thing for houses in Germany. It had been built, he told me, by an Englishman, and now that he could command practically “unlimited means,” he did not restrict his wants. I may say he positively revelled in his grandeur like a boy. His taste in arranging his house once again provoked the hostile comments of an ever-ready opposition press. As I have before remarked, this charge of Oriental luxury was a stock one with some people. Even now, his velvet coat and biretta are made the subject of puerile attacks; but I cannot refrain from stating that Richard Wagner’s house and decorations are far surpassed by the luxuriously appointed palaces of certain English painters, musicians, and dramatic poetasters. Wagner was fond of velvets and satins, and he knew how best to display them. The arrangements in the house, too, showed the unmistakable guiding of a woman. Madame von Bülow acted as a sort of secretary to Wagner. Wagner was a prolific correspondent, but during the early portion of the summer, he had, it seems, been busy finishing the score of the second act of “Siegfried.”
WAGNER A BORN ACTOR.