dashed Wagner's hopes. Other friends, however, now came forward. An
organization for the promotion of the scheme, called the "Richard
Wagner Society," was started at Mannheim. Notwithstanding the ridicule
which it excited, another society was formed at Vienna. Like societies
began to appear in all the principal cities of Germany, and they found
imitators in Milan, Pesth, Brussels, London, and New York. Shares were
taken so rapidly that the success of the undertaking was no longer
doubtful. Meanwhile the theatre itself was under construction. It
combined several peculiarities, one of the most novel of which was the
concealment of the orchestra by the sinking of the floor, so that the
view of the audience could not be interrupted by the musicians and
their movements. Private boxes were done away with, the arrangement of
the seats being like that of an ancient amphitheatre, all of them
facing the stage. Two prosceniums were constructed which gave an
indefinable sense of distance to the stage-picture. To relieve the
bare side walls, a row of pillars was planned, gradually widening
outward and forming the end of the rows of seats, thus having the
effect of a third proscenium. The stage portion of the theatre was
twice as high as the rest of the building, for all the scenery was
both raised and lowered, the incongruity between the two parts being
concealed by a façade in front. "Whoever has rightly understood me,"
says Wagner, "will readily perceive that architecture itself had to
acquire a new significance under the inspiration of the genius of
Music, and thus that the myth of Amphion building the walls of Thebes
by the notes of his lyre has yet a meaning."

The theatre was completed in 1876, and in the month of August (13-16)
Wagner saw the dream of his life take the form of reality. He had
everything at his command,--a theatre specially constructed for his
purpose; a stage which in size, scenery, mechanical arrangements, and