from the Royal Opera House,
Covent Garden
In 1857 at Zurich Wagner was enmeshed in the lore of Teutonic legend, and with the score of Die Walkiire completed twelve months earlier, he was in the midst of Siegfried. Then a strange thing happened. In a roundabout way the then Emperor of Brazil, Dom Pedro II, had heard of Wagner as a composer of opera, and in due course Wagner was approached to supply a work for the Italian Opera Company there. The proposal led Wagner to consider the possibility of Tristan, which had long been in his mind-there was even a question of an Italian text. The Brazil scheme gradually faded out of sight and mind, but the stimulus sank deep into Wagner's thoughts, and what might have been Dom Pedro 's loss became the glorious enrichment of German music. See the article by William Wallace on page 13.