My esteemed Friend!
I could have no worse punishment for my negligence toward you than your gentle vengeance in persistently helping me and my young reputation, whenever occasion has offered. You have often caused me to wonder at your consistent wish to help me, and I must accuse myself of not having answered in kind. But if you had beheld me during the winter you might have understood that not all negligence is to be put down as a sin. Annoyingly subjected to an abdominal ailment, exceedingly busy in my duty (sometimes the most tasteless in the world), passionately absorbed in finishing my opera, I became so much of an egotist that I used each of my few remaining idle moments in lonely walks, that is, in consulting with myself. To be sure, I am in a crisis now from which I am not able to rise and extricate myself! After a single lucky stroke by which I quickly got a reputation and a position so important and necessary for Germany—my lucky star all of a sudden failed me. I have not been able to make another decisive step forward since my first appearance in Dresden. What I need is a great—even the greatest—city of Germany to support my Dresden success. But Berlin's function seems to be to weaken it. To appear before such a large public with a work like my Flying Dutchman was in itself alone a bold venture, especially since they were not yet ready to befriend me. Thus my introduction to Berlin ought absolutely to have happened with my Rienzi. But since the Dutchman was quite effectively presented after all, in spite of the unmusical playhouse, so unfavorable to my music, the Berlin manager had to offset the advantage gained by presently dropping the opera from the repertory, merely to make way for the accustomed routine. In this way my labors were entirely discounted, and any further expression of them is for the moment quite out of the question. How I worked to make my Rienzi a possibility in Berlin! Meyerbeer, who had attended its twentieth performance last summer and had the chance of making sure of its effect, witnessed the calling out of the singers by thunderous applause, after each of the five acts, even the recall of the author after the fourth act—and accordingly promised to do everything in his power to produce that opera for the Berliners as soon as possible. I don't yet doubt the honesty of his disposition toward me, but the persisting reason which makes a production impossible—the lack of a heroic tenor—is enough to drive me mad.
Now the difficulty of popularizing my works is doubled for me by the attitude of the Dresden critics. Dresden is a place which a century of dull routine has sunk into complete insignificance: Weber found here a flowering Italian opera as a foreign cultural product; he had to establish a German opera under the most irritating circumstances in the world, since above everything else the Court was all against it.
The artistic means at his disposal were at that time not yet truly significant, and he preferred to introduce his work elsewhere. Since Weber's death the artistic means have greatly increased, especially by the abandonment of the Italian opera; but meanwhile the spirit of the management has succumbed to the crassest philistinism, and deplorably undermined the work of Weber to raise Dresden to musical importance. Inspired by the resources I found there I made a point of continuing Weber's work, that is, advancing Dresden's musical emancipation, smashing philistinism, educating the public's taste for what is best, and so raising its level. And what was the first thing I encountered: Envy!! So long as I was the poor unknown musician who had suddenly won a great success with an opera, everything was all right; but when this success extended as far as to getting a life position at 1,500 thaler, the milk of sympathy turned sour. The hostile effects of this envy I have fortunately overcome where it was an obstacle to my actual work; but in that province where for honor's sake I can't interfere—in the realm of criticism, it continues to be rampant. But what does criticism amount to in a city like Dresden? They have one paper only, and for foreign journals we have only one correspondent. Your old friend Schladebach may have his merits, but in his attitude toward me he succumbs unconditionally to the effects of a deadly envy; and so it happens that he either strongly disfigures my activity when reporting it abroad, or, which is still worse, he kills its good success by complete silence. For instance, when I began my work here I found Marschner's Hans Heiling, the score of which had been accepted for performance ten years ago, but which now quietly slept in the library: I unearthed that opera and performed it. Learning that Marschner had finished a new opera, Adolf von Nassau, I insisted upon its being given here for the first time and so not slightly surprised the composer, who would sooner have expected the Dresden Theater to collapse than to make any such decision. A great festival was to be given by a men's chorus; my predecessors had nobly withdrawn from similar activities. I put myself at the head and achieved one of the most magnificent performances in the Frauenkirche. The orchestra itself suffered from manifold defects. After considerable struggles I received the necessary increase in funds, a better arrangement of the orchestra, reinforcement of the strings, etc. In spite of the decisive repugnance of the Court and the general manager, I effected the moving of Weber's remains to Dresden; the funeral, the dignified ceremony is my work. Did you read anything about it in the Dresden reports? Did you ever find a mention of the fact that my Rienzi since its first appearance here is still—even under the most unfavorable circumstances—the only opera which attracts a capacity audience? That the twenty-fifth performance was attended by the King of Prussia, who displayed a striking interest in it? Certainly not, and this is the sort of information which one would expect to be reported. You may find it petty to be put out by such trifles, but consider how much all this concerns me as long as my activities are still restricted to Dresden, since after the happenings in Berlin I had virtually no way of making myself known abroad. I know quite well that newspaper reports can't make a good work into a bad one, or a bad one into a good one—but the papers can prejudice a good thing by hindering and retarding its dissemination; they can be discouraging. Actually, I must confess that this special difficulty of the making known of my operas, though it did not discourage me, gradually undermined my plan, which might have been of no slight value. For after the fine success I achieved in Dresden, I had proposed to cut all the threads that had connected me with Paris, and this I did in fair hopes of the moment when a dramatic composer could make an impress upon Germany through German channels. I still now consider it important for the whole future of our dramatic music that a personality appearing in the very heart of Germany should be made known across Germany; and I confess to being painfully aware that this thought turns involuntarily toward Paris, where the mud hampers my every step: Must my road to Germany go by way of Paris? I cling to this thought of Paris. I am as unhappy and ill at ease as if I were about to sell my good mother. Is it good to entertain such perfidious thoughts? Help me to wipe them out entirely!
Along with this I am sending you my Tannhäuser, for he is a German fellow from top to toe; accept this as a present offered in friendship. May it win the hearts of my German compatriots more completely than my former works could once do. This work must be good; if not, I can never accomplish anything good. It worked a true magic on me; I would no sooner touch the music than I would quiver with warmth and glow: in spite of all the great interruptions in my work, I was always freshly suffused with that peculiar fragrance which had intoxicated me at the very first conception. I am sending you the score for no other reason than to get you acquainted with it, and I ask you to show it only to the closest of your friends; after the first performance of the opera in Dresden this September, the score will be sent about as a novelty by the book trade; until then it is to be withheld. Right now I beg you not to look in these lines for any journalistic discussion or commendation. Nowadays there is so much artificial promotion and I myself—aside from what you did for me—am completely convinced that almost all newspaper articles spring from the personal interest of those concerned. That is why I fight shy of everything which smacks of favoritism. I have told you all this because you have repeatedly shown a rare sympathy for me and because I found it necessary to get rid of these annoyances for once and all by discussing them. If my disclosures have any other purpose, it is to warn you to be specially cautious, if such a case should arise. I have delivered the opera itself to the Berlin management with the request for a production, if Rienzi cannot be done by the end of the year on account of the lack of a heroic tenor. God knows what the great Küstner is going to do.
I have done some touching up of the book, following your advice; among other things, the schwärzliche Gefieder in Wolfram's song, p. 40, has disappeared. But I have left the end rhyme Gott and Spott, because I find Spott not a forced rhyme but a poetic word suggesting the distortion of God's mercy at the hands of a callous priesthood. God help me!
At the end of this month I want to go to Marienbad to cure my disgusting stomach trouble; in August I am to return to Dresden for the studying of Tannhäuser; the piano scores, etc., everything has been worked out, and on the day after the first performance I shall be free and on my own.
Then I intend to idle away a whole year, that is, to put my library to use without producing anything, although even now, unfortunately, I feel the urge to work again, being absorbed in a new subject; but I shall force myself to hold off, first, because there are many things I still wish to learn; secondly, because I am convinced that a dramatic work which is to have concentrated significance and originality must come from traversing a higher sphere of life, a certain period in the cultural education of an artist; but such an advance, such a period can't be achieved every half-year: several years are required to create this concentrated ripeness. A single unimportant product is enough to satisfy money-makers, but I shall never earn any money; I have resigned myself to it.
In this lazy period I want to shelve my special interests a bit and I ask you especially to look out for me and to tell me in detail how I can reciprocate your friendly services. It would be best of all if you could visit me in Dresden in September: I would take better care of you than the last time.
In order to wind up this long letter (I think I haven't written such a long one in six years), I repeat my heartiest thanks for your many evidences of sympathy and friendship. Wishing you the best of health and an early success in your productive career.
Farewell and hold in affection your most devoted
Richard Wagner
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner: The Burrell Collection, ed. John N. Burk (Macmillan, 1950), No. 59