However, Wagner settled peacefully at Triebschen, and remained there until the Bayreuth idea took solid and visible shape.  He completed the Mastersingers and Siegfried, and made progress with the Dusk of the Gods.  When Minna died in 1868 he immediately married Cosima.  The idea of what ultimately became Bayreuth took shape.  Bayreuth was first thought of for a very prosaic reason.  The town theatre at that time possessed the largest stage in Germany, and in many respects was far ahead of every other German theatre, and this drew the attention of Wagner and his friends to the spot.  Various causes combined to make the idea of giving the first performances of the Ring in this theatre an utter impracticability, and Wagner reverted to his old pet idea of building a theatre for himself.  An eminent architect, Gottfried Semper, cheerfully helped at planning a building which should unite the utmost artistic usefulness with the smallest possible expense.  The house is long out-of-date, but in the ’seventies it seemed a marvel.  The seats were so arranged that every one commanded, theoretically, the same view of the stage; the stage was fitted with the most modern machinery, lights and so on.  The orchestra was sunk, so that the movements of the conductor and his fiddlers should not distract the attention of the audience; the auditorium was darkened, so that everything happening on the stage could be seen with the greatest possible clearness.  When the good burghers of a decaying mediaeval town found what was going to happen to them they rejoiced, for they foresaw invasions of millions of aliens who would not hurt them but would pay out handsomely, and renew the days of the town’s prosperity.  Sites were granted free of cost, both for Wagner’s own house—­Villa Wahnfried—­and the Festival Theatre.  When the foundation of the latter was laid, brass bands and processions took an important part in the proceedings.

From the very start the enterprise was looked on as a commercial one.  Wagner’s house was built, but work at the theatre had soon to be stopped for want of money.  Numerous Wagner societies were started to raise it; concerts innumerable were given with the same object; the composer himself laboured incessantly; and eventually it was possible to resume building.  But the very means, or some of the means, adopted to raise money aroused fierce antagonism amongst the musicians who did not believe in Wagner, or had been attacked by him and his disciples, and put into their hands a weapon of counter-attack.  “Begging” was a term freely employed; and a thousand newspapers were found willing—­nay, anxious—­to insinuate or to state boldly that the money was badly needed to enable the composer to live on a sumptuous scale.  When, in the summer of 1876, the first cycle of the Ring was given, no artistic undertaking could have made a worse start.  People did not know what they were asked to see and to hear; they