King Ludwig II had installed Richard Wagner at the Villa Tribschen, beside Switzerland's Lake Lucerne.

Die Meistersinger had been completed at Tribschen in 1867, and had premièred in Munich on June 21 of the following year.

At Ludwig's insistence, "special previews" of the first two works of the Ring, Das Rheingold and Die Walküre, had been performed at Munich in 1869 and 1870, but Wagner wants the complete cycle to be performed in a new, specially designed opera house.

Minna had died of a heart attack on January 25, 1866, in Dresden.

Wagner did not attend the funeral.

Following Minna's death, Cosima had written to Hans von Bülow on a number of occasions asking him to grant her a divorce, but this does not materialize until after she has two more children with Wagner; another daughter, named Eva, after the heroine of Meistersinger, and a son Siegfried, named for the hero of the Ring.

Legal processes had extended the marriage until July 18, 1870, when the divorce had finally been sanctioned by a Berlin court.

Richard and Cosima were now able to marry.

The wedding had taken place on August 25, 1870.

On Christmas Day of this year, Wagner arranges a surprise performance of the Siegfried Idyll for Cosima's birthday.

The marriage to Cosima will last to the end of Wagner's life.