[843W-{2/73} Prologue to a Reading of Twilight of the Gods: PW Vol. V, p. 306]
[P. 306] “… besides the restoration of its naïve pointedness, it became possible to give the dialogue an extension covering the entire drama; and it is this that enables me to read to you to-day in guise of a bare dramatic poem a work that owes its origin to nothing but the feasibility of carrying it out completely in music: for I believe I may submit it as a play in dialogue to the same judgment we are wont to invoke with a piece indited for the Spoken Play. The quality I thus have claimed for my work not only emboldens me to show it you from this one side without alarm, but has also been my principal reason for the unusual steps I am taking to place it before the German public in its entirety; in the one case as in the other I wish to commend it, not to an assemblage of opera-lovers, but to a gathering of truly educated persons earnestly concerned for an original cultivation of the German Spirit.” [843W-{2/73} Prologue to a Reading of Twilight of the Gods: PW Vol. V, p. 306]
[844W-{2/26/73} CD Vol. I, p. 598]
[P. 598] {anti-FEUER} “In the morning we talk about the arrogance of naturalscientists, who imagine they can solve the riddle of existence and believe they are achieving positive results, though every 10 years the results are changed.” [844W-{2/26/73} CD Vol. I, p. 598]
[845W-{4/19/73}CD Vol. I, p. 624]
[P. 624] {anti-FEUER} “But only religion and art can educate a nation – what use is science, which analyzes everything and explains nothing?” [845W-{4/19/73}CD Vol. I, p. 624]
[846W-{7/4/73} CD Vol. I, p. 653]
[P. 653] {FEUER} “… after lunch conversation about Siegfried and Bruennhilde, the former not a tragic figure, since he does not become conscious of his position, there is a veil over him since winning Bruennhilde for Gunther, he is quite unaware, though the audience knows. Wotan and Bruennhilde are tragic figures.” [846W-{7/4/73} CD Vol. I, p. 653]
[847W-{8/11/73}Letter to King Ludwig II of Bavaria: SLRW, p. 823]
[P. 823] {FEUER} {anti-FEUER} “It is as though I am inspired to write this work in order to preserve the world’s profoundest secret, the truest Christian faith, nay, to awaken that faith anew. And for the sake of this immense task that it is reserved for me to accomplish, I have felt obliged to use my Nibelung drama to build a Castle of the Grail devoted to art, far removed from the common byways of human activity: for only there, in Monsalvat, can the longed-for deed be revealed to the people, to those who are initiated into its rites, not in those places where God may not show Himself beside the idols of day without His being blasphemed.” [847W-{8/11/73}Letter to King Ludwig II of Bavaria: SLRW, p. 823]
