"It is incredible, is it not? But you must not imagine that he was a very fierce democrat. He was occupied only with questions of art, and, like Walther of the Meistersinger, he was chiefly in revolt against the tyranny of routine. He sincerely believed that a political upheaval would lead to an artistic reform; he has paid for that error by twelve years of exile. Defeated as the insurrection was, he still clung to the illusion that better times would surely come for his country and for art. So then it was that, alone, cut off from the world, with nothing to live for, he conceived, in view of those better times, the plan of his tetralogy, of a great national drama, which should make to live before the regenerated German people the gods and heroes of ancient Germanic mythology. Years passed; the better times never came, and the life of the exile grew more and more bitter. Yet, beyond any doubt, Richard Wagner became a celebrated and popular composer throughout all Germany. Thanks to the intervention of my father, Tannhäuser and Lohengrin had been given in Weimar, and also in other capital cities. The exigencies of his life would not permit of his disdaining the situation which now offered itself. The Master was aware that he would have to come down from the heights of his dream and follow this more accessible path which opened before him. In 1857, therefore, he interrupted the composition of the Ring of the Nibelungen, of which the Rheingold, the Valkyrie and two acts of Siegfried were completed."
"What! was he already so far advanced in that tremendous work?"
"Yes. And then Wagner performed another miracle: he composed Tristan and Isolde! When the amnesty was finally granted to him, he went back to Germany. He saw what was happening there with regard to matters of art, and that he could not dream of producing his tetralogy. However, he published the poems from it, preceded by a preface wherein he pointed out in a supremely able way the steps that ought to be taken to attain to the creation of a great National Art. Then he applied himself to the composition of his Meistersinger. When the King of Bavaria summoned Wagner, he had read this preface, and the first thing he said to him was, 'Finish your Nibelungen. I feel that I am called to help you realise your vision.'
"And so it was decided to build a theatre that should be absolutely independent of daily representations and of change of programme. A theatre the opening of which, occurring only once a year, should be an artistic consecration. But what architect would be capable of constructing this monument according to the ideas of the Master? None other than Semper, the designer of the Dresden Museum and theatre, an artist of the first rank, whose talents were unquestioned. The King gave him the command to draw up the plans. Just at this time a formidable intrigue was organised, which revealed itself in a succession of spiteful acts, outrages, and furious onslaughts against him whose only dream was to endow his country with a superior art. This reached such a point that Wagner, fearing for his royal friend, withdrew from Munich. But Ludwig II. would not let go his prize. He banished the principal promoters of these villainies, among others the Minister Pforten, to a distance; and the negotiations with Semper on the subject of the theatre were continued.
"The enemies were conquered only in appearance. They broke loose again and, after an exhausting struggle, too long to recount, it was found necessary to give up the building of the theatre. Once more Wagner retired. He came to Tribschen, and again took up his interrupted work, after an interval of ten years.
"The King only asks of him the completion of this tetralogy, and it is his wish to produce the different parts of it, from year to year, in his own theatre, since the foolishness and malignity of those about him will not allow of the carrying out of Semper's plans. But Wagner has sworn that he will not be present at any of these fragmentary representations of his work. He considers himself as virtually exiled from Bavaria. So, for the second time, Destiny has reserved for him the trial of not being present at the performances of his own works, and of not hearing the resounding music of his immense orchestra. That is the fate imposed upon him to-day, by his artistic conscience.
"There, dear friend, is the history of the defeat of a man of genius by a horde of envious imbeciles. I am sure that Wagner will be glad if you reestablish the truth about this affair which has been so abominably misrepresented.
"And now let us hurry down. They have probably already noticed our absence."