In the Composer's Datebook e-mailed daily by American Public Media:
"…for one million U.S. dollars, Wagner himself was prepared to…settle in America, offering in exchange the premiere and exclusive performance rights to his latest opera, 'Parsifal.' That was the offer Wagner outlined in a letter to his American dentist on today's date in 1880."
"Wagner's wife, Cosima, recorded in her diary that Wagner seemed obsessed with idea of settling in Minnesota…"
Has anybody else heard about this? Is there more to the story? I was just the tiniest bit surprised to read it…
OMG!!! As a Minnesotan this is the funniest thing I've seen all day. I wish Wagner had settled here, then maybe we would get more productions! The Minnesota Opera played Thais, Figaro, Rigoletto and Dead Man Walking (a new opera) this year, but no Wagner... I don't think they have in a while. Our orchestra never plays Wagner or Bruckner either. Quite sad. Mahler 2 was good tho. Well that was a tangent.
I guess it's reasonable to think that it could happened. Dvorak lived in Spillville, Iowa for two or three years before returning back to Europe. Rachmaninoff ended up in Beverly Hills, California.
He'd never have gone to Minnesota. The Wagner societies were in the east, and the Hudson, with its grand estates built on the bluffs along the river, would have reminded him of the Rhine. No doubt some wealthy music lover would have installed him in a cottage, where he and his patron's wife would have passed pleasant hours while Cosima and Siegfried were busy running the Wagner Festival at Sleepy Hollow.
Would've been awkward for the Nazi propaganda during World War II, eh? I guess they would have had to settle for the less exploitable Bruckner and Richard Strauss instead.
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