What are the links between the real city of Nuremberg in Wagner’s lifetime and the composer’s plan to give the first performance of his work there? Wagner‘s initial idea was not to perform his opera in the city on the Pegnitz. It was only in 1866, the year of the Prussian-German War, that he conceived this idea, which must also be considered in connection with Louis II‘s plans to move to Nuremberg the seat of the Bavarian dukes. In addition to this came the project for a German Academy. The cultural and political idea of the redefinition and reconstruction of the “German Spirit” that the first performance in Nuremberg would have entailed finally failed because of the subsequent course of affairs in Munich, not because of Wagner‘s scepticism about the realities of theatrical life in Nuremberg.
