What promised to be a wonderful stroke of good luck came to him here.  His art was brought to the notice of the Emperor, Napoleon III, who requested that one of his operas should be produced, promising carte blanche for funds.  All might have gone well with music of the accepted pattern.  But “Tannhaeuser” was different, its composer particular as to who sang and how it was done.  The rehearsals went badly, an opposing faction tried to drown the music at the first performance.  Matters were so much worse at the second performance that Wagner refused to allow it to proceed.  In spite of the Emperor’s promises, he had borne much of the expense, and left Paris in disgust, burdened with debt.

From Paris Wagner went to Vienna, where he had the great happiness of hearing his “Lohengrin” for the first time.  He hoped to have “Tristan” brought out, but the music proved too difficult for the singers of that time to learn.  After many delays and disappointments, the whole thing was given up.  Reduced now to the lowest ebb, Wagner planned a concert tour to earn a living.  Minna now left him finally; she could no longer endure life with this “monster of genius.”  She went back to her relatives in Leipsic, and passed away there in 1866.

The concert tours extended over a couple of years, but brought few returns, except in Russia.  Wagner became despondent and almost convinced he ought to give up trying to be a composer.  People called him a freak, a madman and ridiculed his efforts at music making.  And yet, during all this troublesome time, he was at work on his one humorous opera, “Die Meistersinger.”  On this he toiled incessantly.

And now, when he was in dire need, and suffering, a marvelous boon was coming to him, as wonderful as any to be found in fairy tale.  A fairy Prince was coming to the rescue of this struggling genius.  This Prince was the young monarch of Bavaria, who had just succeeded to the throne left by the passing of his father.  The youthful Prince, ardent and generous, had long worshiped in secret the master and his music.  One of his first acts on becoming Ludwig of Bavaria, was to send for Wagner to come to his capital at once and finish his life work in peace.  “He wants me to be with him always, to work, to rest, to produce my works,” wrote Wagner to a friend in Zurich, where he had been staying.  “He will give me everything I need; I am to finish my Nibelungen and he will have them performed as I wish.  All troubles are to be taken from me; I shall have what I need, if I only stay with him.”

The King placed a pretty villa on Lake Starnberg, near Munich, at Wagner’s disposal, and there he spent the summer of 1864.  The King’s summer palace was quite near, and monarch and composer were much together.  In the autumn a residence in the quiet part of Munich was set apart for Wagner.  Hans von Buelow was sent for as one of the conductors; young Hans Richter lived in Munich and later became one of the most distinguished conductors of Wagner’s music.