. . . Unfortunately, the best theater still remains closed to me: I cannot go to Dresden, where I know there are the best singers for my works! Thus I am actually still quite undecided what advantage I may get out of my present position, and for the moment I'm staying in Paris, where I'm held back by the imminent performance of the old Tannhäuser.
I'm happy that you believe you can reconcile me with Rietz under these circumstances. How an open and malicious enemy of my music can go at the production of my operas with devotion must remain inconceivable to me: it is probably the devotion with which he fixed up my Lohengrin so magnificently in Leipzig! My dear friend, here it is a matter of the soul: the apparent care and scrupulousness are nothing, so long as the full warmth and understanding are not present. What good does all that orchestral conducting do me then! Many of them can do that! But this way it stays: the theater dearest to me, where I know the best singers to be, does not exist for me after all!—that is the doing of the high dignitaries who act against me!
Well, farewell! Give my best regards to Frau Pauline, and accept my very best thanks for your always great interest.
Your
R. W.
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner: The Burrell Collection, ed. John N. Burk (Macmillan, 1950), No. 222