Bayreuth

When the Bayreuth Festival Playhouse was at last completed, and
opened in 1876 with the first performance of The Ring, European
society was compelled to admit that Wagner was "a success."
Royal personages, detesting his music, sat out the performances
in the row of boxes set apart for princes. They all complimented
him on the astonishing "push" with which, in the teeth of all
obstacles, he had turned a fabulous and visionary project into a
concrete commercial reality, patronized by the public at a pound
a head. It is as well to know that these congratulations had no
other effect upon Wagner than to open his eyes to the fact that
the Bayreuth experiment, as an attempt to evade the ordinary
social and commercial conditions of theatrical enterprise, was a
failure. His own account of it contrasts the reality with his
intentions in a vein which would be bitter if it were not so
humorous. The precautions taken to keep the seats out of the
hands of the frivolous public and in the hands of earnest
disciples, banded together in little Wagner Societies throughout
Europe, had ended in their forestalling by ticket speculators and
their sale to just the sort of idle globe-trotting tourists
against whom the temple was to have been strictly closed. The
money, supposed to be contributed by the faithful, was begged by
energetic subscription-hunting ladies from people who must have
had the most grotesque misconceptions of the composer's aims--
among others, the Khedive of Egypt and the Sultan of Turkey!

The only change that has occurred since then is that
subscriptions are no longer needed; for the Festival Playhouse
apparently pays its own way now, and is commercially on the same
footing as any other theatre. The only qualification required
from the visitor is money. A Londoner spends twenty pounds on a
visit: a native Bayreuther spends one pound. In either case "the
Folk," on whose behalf Wagner turned out in 1849, are effectually
excluded; and the Festival Playhouse must therefore be classed as
infinitely less Wagnerian in its character than Hampton Court
Palace. Nobody knew this better than Wagner; and nothing can be
further off the mark than to chatter about Bayreuth as if it had
succeeded in escaping from the conditions of our modern
civilization any more than the Grand Opera in Paris or London.

Within these conditions, however, it effected a new departure in
that excellent German institution, the summer theatre. Unlike our
opera houses, which are constructed so that the audience may
present a splendid pageant to the delighted manager, it is
designed to secure an uninterrupted view of the stage, and an
undisturbed hearing of the music, to the audience. The dramatic