Dear Sir,
You will not, I hope, think it strange to be importuned by a letter from so remote a region as this & from someone who is undoubtedly as unknown to you as I am; but it is the fate of every man of celebrity such as yourself to be close at hand in even the most uncharted regions, to be stared at by everyone as though he were intimately familiar, & yet to regard himself as utterly unfamiliar. First of all, however, I must hasten to familiarize you with myself & my reasons for writing, & shall begin with a simple description of myself. I am not yet 24 years old, I was born in Leipzig, & about 6 years ago, after I had already begun studying at the University there, chose music as my vocation; I was encouraged to do so by my passionate admiration for Beethoven, as a result of which my first efforts at composition were of an entirely one-sided nature; - since that time, & more especially since I went out into the world & embarked upon a practical career, my views on the present state of music, & above all dramatic music, have undergone a significant change, & it would be futile of me to deny that it was your works which suggested this new direction to me. This is certainly not the place for me to pay my own unskilled tribute to your genius, yet I cannot forbear to add that in you I behold the perfect embodiment of the task that confronts the German artist, a task you have solved by dint of your having mastered the merits of the Italian & French Schools in order to give universal validity to the products of that genius. This, then, is what more or less set me upon my present course. The scandalous prostration of provincial composers in present-day Germany was what first drew my attention to all that now needs to be done; the fact that our German composers must first travel to Paris before they can return to Germany is a deplorable state of affairs, I admit, but it has its reasons. I was, moreover, struck by a wild idea, indeed you may already know about it. I discovered a splendid subject for a grand opera in a recently published German novel; but I realized at once that it could be far more effectively adapted to suit the requirements of a French opera house, rather than a German one. Accordingly, I drafted a scenario which needs only to be versified in order for me to be able to set it to music, & I sent it in August last year to Herr Scribe in Paris. I asked him if he would deign to peruse the sketch, &, if he liked it & if he believed himself capable of turning it into an effective libretto, to appropriate it for himself, leaving me to set it to music & using his authority to bring about a production of the opera in Paris. I have not yet received a reply, & it occurs to me that my action may perhaps have been ill-considered to the extent that I did not first seek to convince Herr Scribe of my ability to produce a good & effective piece. Accordingly, I have just sent off to him the full score of a grand comic opera of my own composition, The Ban on L., together with the request that he submit it to you for your scrutiny. If your verdict were to turn out in my favour, I should once again commend to him the earlier request that I made. This, Sir, would also furnish me with a suitable opportunity to approach you in person. You may easily judge to what extent the whole of my career & the whole of my life are dependent upon your verdict (in the event, that is, of your considering my feeble work worthy of your attention), when I reveal to you that my most ardent desire & my every effort is aimed at being able to come to Paris, since I sense something within me that must inevitably bear goodly fruit there. The opera that is to be submitted to you is one which I myself have adapted from a Shakespearean play, M. f. M.; even while I was still working on it, the somewhat free & almost frivolous tone of the piece, not to mention the whole colour of the work, had already convinced me that it was not really suited to our German tastes; I was already actively thinking of France, & have therefore not yet allowed the opera to be performed in Germany. Would it be possible, therefore, to have the scenario translated into French by some able person, & to offer it in that form to the Opéra-Comique for production there? If you liked the opera, it might indeed be possible for you, rather than anyone else, to bring this about. Your reputation describes you as so noble & generous a person that I might even make so bold as to beg you to devote your concern to me; & what finer action is there left for a man like yourself to take? Greater honour as an artist can scarcely still be granted you, for you have already attained to heights of unprecedented fame; wherever people can sing, your melodies are to be heard; you have become a demigod on earth; - how glorious it is for the man who has reached this point to glance round & offer his hand to those whom he has left so far behind, in order to draw them a little closer towards him. This is certainly something that you yourself must feel more nobly & more clearly within you than so insignificant an individual as myself can ever adequately express, & I am convinced that it is simply a question of having to earn your goodwill. Well then, - deign to peruse my work, - if you discover that I have been deluding myself as to its merits, you will be able to explain this fact to me more clearly than anyone else could have done; if, on the other hand, you consider it worthy of your protection, I beg you not to refuse me your help. The sort of opportunity that you are able to offer brings with it not only honour & material prosperity, but may arouse, awaken & fashion within us strengths which would otherwise have withered & died, given the miserable state in which we now find ourselves in our beloved fatherland. It was simply the need to make ends meet that drove me here to this inhospitable & obscure corner of East Prussia; & which holds me here still; what can a man achieve in such a situation? It may perhaps require no more than a declaration of your sympathetic interest in my talent & abilities for you to inspire me to produce something that would otherwise have disappeared without trace; will you deny me this if you consider me worthy of it?
How profoundly must I beg your forgiveness for the liberty of denying you a few precious minutes of your time in order to make this somewhat importunate approach; but if you can place yourself in the mental position of a young man whose every nerve & fibre yearns to be able to develop his powers but as yet lacks the helping hand that will show him what direction that yearning must take, then you will certainly grant me your forgiveness, & perhaps even offer me your hand. - In the event of your not yet having received my score from Herr Scribe, you will, I am sure, be so kind as to request it from him. As soon as I am apprised of his answer, then I may well venture to hope that you yourself will inform me of my fate, which I herewith place in your hands & commend to your heart. Everything depends upon your verdict.
In ardent admiration, I am
your devoted servant
Richard Wagner.
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 23