„Doch was noch nie sich traf, danach trachtet mein Sinn.“
The Scholarship Foundation
The foundation of the Richard-Wagner-Scholarship Foundation in 1882
„To make the public completely free and independent when face to face with Art, the public should have free admission to the performances.“
(Richard Wagner in "Art and Revolution", 1849)
„But it would be very much in my sense if you, dear friend, were to set up a foundation which would enable the impecunious to attend the performances. This would, in a sense, fulfil my very first thought. This foundation under your leadership would have to be independent of the administration of the performances.“
(Richard Wagner to Friedrich von Schoen, 28th May 1882)
„...so now the first and most important task for a new patronage to be formed is for me to procure the means to grant completely free access, even if necessary the costs of the journey and the foreign stay, to those to whom the lot of the most and often most capable of Germania's sons has fallen with meagerness.“
(Richard Wagner to Friedrich von Schoen, 16th June 1882)
This is how the Richard Wagner Scholarship Foundation came into being.
The foundation aims to promote and deepen the Bayreuth Festival concept. To achieve this goal, it enables talented aspiring musicians, singers or other stage-professionals, who may be considered as young talents for the Bayreuth Festival orchestra or stage, to attend several performances of the Bayreuth Festival and thus to directly comprehend Richard Wagner's revolutionary festival idea.