Walpole was a keen music lover and when in 1920 he heard a new tenor at the Proms he was much impressed and sought him out. Lauritz Melchior became one of the most important friendships of his life, and Walpole did much to foster the singer's budding career. Wagner's son Siegfried engaged Melchior for the Bayreuth Festival in 1924 and succeeding years. Walpole attended, and met Adolf Hitler, then recently released from prison after an attempted putsch. Hitler was a protégé of Siegfried's wife Winifred, and was known in Bayreuth as "one of Winnie's lame ducks." Walpole later admitted that he had both despised and liked him – "both emotions that time has proved I was wrong to indulge". This and future visits to Bayreuth were complicated by the fact that Winifred Wagner fell in love with Walpole, and attached herself so firmly to him that rumours began to spread.