Complete Letters 27

Arrangement for Bayreuth

1875 is all about plans for the Bayreuth Festival. The first half of the year is devoted to completing the vocal ensemble and recruiting orchestral musicians. Wagner is forced to go on concert tours to finance the preliminary rehearsals. The financial situation remains strained despite a loan from Munich. – The new management of the Vienna Court Opera offers Wagner the chance to rehearse sample presentations of Tannhäuser and Lohengrin.

Late in the fall he moves with his family to the Danube metropolis for six weeks. Overshadowing the stay there is a legal dispute with the publisher Fürstner about performance rights to the new Tannhäuser scenes.

The volume contains 372 letters, 98 of which are printed here for the first time, and 23 others published in their entirety for the first time.