Friday, May 7:
Yesterday evening brings back to R. the idea of making some cuts in Tristan; he says it demands too much of the audience as well as the singers, and he would do this in both the second and third acts, reserving the full work for performances in Bayreuth, for he wishes Tristan to be staged there too.
At lunch he announces that he intends to arrange the choruses from the first act of Parsifal for our children; he says he will not be able to prepare it as a surprise for me, for it would have to be practiced “mercilessly.”
Otherwise, only dismal remarks about the present mass emigrations from Germany. However, delight in Siegfried, his cheerful temperament, which will make things easy for him.
In the evening R. reads the scene from The Merry Wives of Windsor in which Slender is unwilling to come in for the meal, to our great amusement. “What I find so wonderful,” says R., “is how he wrote it all down, stuff like this, what a tremendous mind!” He quotes Falstaff’s “No quips now, Pistol,” with much laughing delectation.
From Much Ado About Nothing the constables’ scene, with less enjoyment, on account of the verbal jokes. A violent thunderstorm, which does us good after the closeness which almost ruined our morning walk.