Now that the Festival had reopened and, despite Friedelind's gloomy predictions, was running successfully, she wanted to be part of it. As if to prove her determination to herself, she now moved back to Europe for three years. She would stay variously in England, France, East Germany and the Netherlands and would attend more than 300 opera performances and innumerable rehearsals before returning to the US in November 1957. Even Winifred – ever the energetic, go-ahead type – was sometimes exhausted when her daughter came to stay in Bayreuth. ‘Maus is coming more often than I'd like! – but she means well!’ She came regularly to the Festival now and earned her living from journalism, writing reports and articles, mostly about the Festival productions. The music journalist Irving Kolodin received long letters from her in which reports on European opera houses were mingled with flirtatious comments – thus she expressed regret that she couldn't come in person to get her ‘annual kiss’ and announced that she would let it gather interest.

From 1955 onwards Friedelind lived in the gardener's house next to Wahnfried, where she had four small rooms and a makeshift kitchen. She dubbed it ‘Haus Wahnfriedelind’. Since she would often be up till three in the morning, washing up after visits from friends (in German ‘abspülen’), she also called it her ‘Festspülhaus’. On one occasion, male visitors wandered into her bedroom by mistake, which she found hilarious.