Bayreuth is Wagner's creation in the world of action, as the
music-dramas are his creation in the world of art; and it is a triumph
not less decisive, in its transposition of dream into reality. Remember
that every artist, in every art, has desired his own Bayreuth, and that
only Wagner has attained it. Who would not rather remain at home,
receiving the world, than go knocking, humbly or arrogantly, at many
doors, offering an entertainment, perhaps unwelcome? The artist must
always be at cautious enmity with his public, always somewhat at its
mercy, even after he has conquered its attention. The crowd never really
loves art, it resents art as a departure from its level of mediocrity;
and fame comes to an artist only when there is a sufficient number of
intelligent individuals in the crowd to force their opinion upon the
resisting mass of the others, in the form of a fashion which it is
supposed to be unintelligent not to adopt. Bayreuth exists because
Wagner willed that it should exist, and because he succeeded in forcing
his ideas upon a larger number of people of power and action than any
other artist of our time. Wagner always got what he wanted, not always
when he wanted it. He had a king on his side, he had Liszt on his side,
the one musician of all others who could do most for him; he had the
necessary enemies, besides the general resistance of the crowd; and at
last he got his theatre, not in time to see the full extent of his own
triumph in it, but enough, I think, to let him die perfectly satisfied.
He had done what he wanted: there was the theatre, and there were his
works, and the world had learnt where to come when it was called.
And there is now a new Bayreuth, where, almost as well as at Bayreuth
itself, one can see and hear Wagner's music as Wagner wished it to be
seen and heard. The square, plain, grey and green Prinz-Regenten Theatre
at Munich is an improved copy of the theatre at Bayreuth, with exactly
the same ampitheatrical arrangement of seats, the same invisible
orchestra and vast stage. Everything is done as at Bayreuth: there are
even the three "fanfaren" at the doors, with the same punctual and
irrevocable closing of the doors at the beginning of each act. As at
Bayreuth, the solemnity of the whole thing makes one almost nervous, for
the first few minutes of each act; but, after that, how near one is, in
this perfectly darkened, perfectly quiet theatre, in which the music
surges up out of the "mystic gulf," and the picture exists in all the
ecstasy of a picture on the other side of it, beyond reality, how near
one is to being alone, in the passive state in which the flesh is able
to endure the great burdening and uplifting of vision. There are thus
now two theatres in the world in which music and drama can be absorbed,
and not merely guessed at.