Like the sybaritic Ludwig who ruled Bavaria 50 years ago, Adolf Hitler has a fanatic admiration for the operas of Richard Wagner. King Ludwig liked to think of himself as Lohengrin or Parsifal, fixed up his castles with Wagnerian stage settings, helped finance Bayreuth when Wagner wanted a theatre of his own. Last week Dictator Hitler also took Bayreuth under his wing, had the German Government grant it an annual subsidy of 100,000 marks ($37,000).
The new Wagner Protective Law also prohibits the performance of Parsifal in all German theatres outside Bayreuth. For 21 years Wagner's family succeeded in keeping the great religious music-drama sacred to the Festivals. In 1903 the Metropolitan Opera Company first gave it. In 1912 the copyright lapsed in Germany. Bayreuth is now run by Frau Winifred Wagner, the late great Richard's daughter-in-law to whom Hitler has often been rumored engaged.