# - Wagner, Richard.

telling Materna about his plans for a season of twenty concerts in London, inviting her to sing Brünnhilde and Sieglinde in scenes from The Ring, Ortrud (from Lohengrin, with Carl Hill as Telramund), and Senta in the duet from Der fliegende Holländer, for which she will be paid five hundred Marks per appearance; Wagner explains that he has decided that he will only perform The Ring in future under quite different arrangements than he had to accept the previous year, and that the concerts in London will enable him to finance the production standing on his own two feet ("...Viel Repertoir, denn die Engländer fressen Musik: Also etwa Brünnhilde (Szenen) auch Sieglinde (1r Act). Ortrud (mit Hill) Vielleicht grosses Duett aus fl. Holländer? Senta..."), 3 pages, 8vo (c.20 x 12.5cms), Bayreuth, 24 February 1877



 

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The London agents Hodge & Essex offered Wagner the enticing prospect of twenty lucrative concerts in London to help defray the expenses incurred during the first Bayreuth Festival of 1876 (where Materna had sung the leading soprano role in Der Ring des Nibelungen).  In the event only eight of the promised concerts materialized and, whilst the season (with Wagner and Richter conducting an orchestra of 169 players) was an artistic success for the composer, it was a financial failure.