Two most interesting days have passed. What a crowd of people in their formal attire thronged the streets as early as Saturday noon!
I didn’t put on my formal dress, as Feustel had previously planned, to form a guard of honor at the train station. Instead, I plunged into the throng of people and watched our beloved Wilhelm, ever-present and fresh-faced, enter the station amidst boundless cheers.
At 6 o’clock I went to rehearsal at the Wagner Theater. The dragon has arrived. When I saw him, I whispered to Döpler, “Put that hussy in the deepest junk room! Leave it out! We’ll be ruined by this worm.” With Wagner and Brandt I went to the restaurant and then drove alone with the maestro into town. A procession through the decorated and bustling streets of Bayreuth! Everyone greeted us. I confess that this drive today was a particular thrill for my vanity.
In the evening I went to the Eremitage, where a torchlight procession was presented to the Emperor. Water splashed by Bengal lights. I estimate the number of torchbearers at 1500; the throng of people was terrible. The crowd that gradually gathered at Angermann’s afterward, the fighting over a pint of beer, defies description. I met many old acquaintances and made new ones. Wilhelm Scholz and Dohm (the men from “Kladderadatsch”) greeted me warmly, as if from old times.
Yesterday, Sunday morning, the streets were bustling with activity; the Emperor went to church. In the evening, the first performance of “Das Rheingold” took place. Many of the transformations went awry, and I can confidently say that these errors hadn’t occurred in any rehearsal. At the end, Wagner was summoned for half an hour—but he didn’t come. He sat beside himself in his room, cursing all the performers except for Hill and me, who were with him; he was inconsolable. On my way home, I met Lesimple, who couldn’t emphasize enough how beautiful and powerful the impressions the audience had received were.
I encountered many more such judgments. But, as I had expected, our opponents, who had come as critics from all over the world, scrutinized us under a magnifying glass and, as Berliners say, gave us a good dressing-down. Wilhelmj, who had come from Wiesbaden for the performance, introduced me to his very beautiful wife; he couldn’t praise my Nibelungen enough.
This morning I met Ludwig Pietsch, a friend from the 50s. It’s a pity there’s no guestbook from which one could find out who all the important and well-known people are here.