My dearest Friend!
You see where my strange fate has driven me. Peculiar circumstances have occurred since your friendly visit in Zürich which quickly materialized an earlier desire to spend a fall and winter in Italy. I chose this noiseless and yet so interesting Venice in order to get the leisure to finish my Tristan here in perfect solitude.
Your delightful and kind letter has already been forwarded to me. Unfortunately, I heard about Herr Eckert's well meant telegram only through you. Give him, please, my most cordial thanks for it and for all the thoughtfulness and special attention which he so successfully devoted to my Lohengrin. You may easily imagine, my dear friend, that this success gave me a really gratifying pleasure. According to your assertions and comforting reassurances, I could expect an especially fine performance of this difficult work in Vienna; I could assume that all the parts would be cast and supported as nowhere else. But at the same time worries remained whether this genre, intrinsically alien to the present Viennese taste, could have a genuine success. Now you may gather how delighted I was by your news, especially since I got it at a time when—I frankly confess—a true reassurance was needed to keep up my joy of life and hope for my work. Yes, my dear friend, this I owe to you. When I met you in Zürich, new hopes arose in my heart on account of your friendliness. Well, you have fulfilled them, and in doing so have agreeably stimulated and inspired me in a heavy period of my life. The mere fact that you found joy in Lohengrin means much to me. My deep and sincere thanks for this! But be kind enough also to extend a good share of these thanks to the excellent singers whom I may call my dear friends too, and this from us both. Tell Frau Meyer-Dustmann that I am cross with her for disappointing my expectations of a visit from her in May. But her fine performance in my opera makes full amends. I trust that your splendid orchestra will allow me to extend my hearty thanks to them also. Do it please. Their friendly acceptance of it would make me happy. But now I approach you with a new burden: please notify me as soon as possible about the further fate of my Lohengrin. I heard nothing about it except what I could gather from your letter. Although this was the main thing, I should like to know directly from you how it goes with the Swan Knight at the Kärntnerthor. Farewell! Think of me in friendliness. I certainly shall not fail to reciprocate.
Always your
Richard Wagner
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner: The Burrell Collection, ed. John N. Burk (Macmillan, 1950), No. 192