Chapter XVII

The first presentation of the _Rheingold_ was billed for Sunday, the 29th August, two days later. Under the circumstances, it must be prevented from taking place.

If the stage settings had been simply mediocre, it might have been possible to resign oneself and count upon the splendour of the work to make one forget the inadequacy of its plastic realisation: but here there was too much of the grotesque, too many things that made one laugh, the bad faith and malevolence were too evident: there must be a protest so violent as to prevent the accomplishment of the sacrilege.

After we were all reunited in our usual place at the Café Maximilian, the conference was not a long one. Richter had had a stormy interview with Perfall.

"Postpone the representation," said Richter.

"The representation will take place on Sunday," replied Perfall.

"We shall see!"

"We shall see!"

"And he _will see_," added Richter. "My resolution is taken, but I did not wish to announce it before asking Wagner's advice. Quick. Let us get to business!"

He wrote a dispatch in German, and we wrote the following in French:

"Master, the orchestra, under the direction of Hans Richter, was admirable. The singers deserve the highest praise. The scenery and the stage mechanism are absurd, ridiculous, impossible." And, while someone hurried off with the telegrams, I wrote a long letter to Wagner, giving him a detailed account of the spectacle at which we had just been present and concerning which we were still trembling with indignation.

Betz also wrote to the Master, who would receive the dispatches the same evening and the letters the following morning.

We awaited the replies in the greatest impatience.

The first telegram which arrived the next day was for Richter:

"Will they really offer me such an insult as to give my work to-morrow?"

At the theatre the _Rheingold_ was still announced. Richter showed Wagner's dispatch to Perfall, but he paid no attention to it, and persisted in his determination to give the work upon the date for which it was billed.

I received a letter from Tribschen in which Wagner said that he thanked me for the vivid description I had sent him of this disaster, that he had telegraphed to the King asking him to suspend the representations, that he had telegraphed to Betz begging him to refuse to sing under such conditions.

On Sunday morning Richter went for a last time to see the Director, and said to him:

"The representation of the _Rheingold_ will not take place this evening, because I will not conduct the work against the wish of its author."

"You will not conduct it this evening, nor any other evening," cried Perfall--"as you are no longer Capellmeister to the Royal Theatre."

And pale with rage, he signed the dismissal of Hans Richter.

But at least they could not play the _Rheingold_ that evening. Better that the sea should swallow one man than the whole ship.

A strip was pasted across the bills, postponing the performance to the following Thursday. The management sought for a new leader of orchestra, there was a mad rush about Munich, where many Capellmeisters had come to hear the _Rheingold_.

All those whom they solicited, stole away, leaving the city precipitately; not one of them cared to incur the disapproval of the composer by conducting the work against his will.

On Monday another letter brought the news that Wagner had written at length to the King, explaining to him in all its details, the affair of the _Rheingold_ and begging him to postpone again the performance announced for Thursday to the following Sunday. If it were in accordance with the King's wishes, Wagner would himself go to Munich to re-instal Richter at the desk and to reorganize the scenes as much as possible.

The Master had submitted the same conditions to the management of the theatre the day before, and had received a telegram, come out of the Counsellor's hump, to the effect that the conditions were granted and that they only prayed him to allow them to give the representation on Thursday.

Wagner telegraphed in answer to that:--

"I await a response from the King to a letter sent off to-day."

But on this same evening of Monday, the 30th August, Richter received a dispatch from Wagner which announced his own arrival for the following day. He had not the patience to wait for the King's answer. He would come in the strictest secrecy, no one was to know where he would stay, and, we must understand, it was necessary to guard the secret most carefully.