Most honoured friend,
I was informed yesterday by someone who had just seen the most recent issue of your Zeitschrift für Musik that he had yet to find in it a report on the production of my opera “Rienzi” which is currently being performed in Dresden. I confess that this news saddened me deeply, since I do not know on whose support I might count if not on yours. How has this come about? After all, you carry other reports from Dresden, - why, then, has there been no word about an event which, seen quite impartially - has caused such a stir here from every point of view? Shall I tell you, in support of what I say, that the composer was called on stage four times (unheard of here) at the first performance and twice at the second? That at the third performance the composer had forcibly to decline the thrice repeated calls on him to appear, since he wished this honour to be accorded to the singers alone? Shall I mention the fact that my opera continues to be given at increased prices, and that, notwithstanding this increase, there are no more seats to be had for any of the forthcoming performances? - I know that these are all things which need not necessarily have anything to do with the merit of my work, and it mortifies me to have to enumerate them for your benefit. Inured to suffering at a time when art was my only consolation, I am now sufficient of an artist not to see my only salvation in the flattery of my self-esteem; but anyone who is concerned to make ends meet cannot comfort himself solely with the knowledge that he has striven honourably. -
It would, therefore, have been my earnest wish to have seen you at a performance of my opera, and if this desire of mine might yet be realized tomorrow, Friday, at the 4th performance of my opera, you would indeed make me very happy. That the expenses which you incur as a result of your visit will be met from my own pocket is something I hope I need not mention.
There is one other point which I must mention, since I consider it to be most extraordinary: the Dresden management has just invited me to deliver to them at the earliest opportunity the full score of my other opera - “the flying Dutchman”, since they intend to stage this work, too, without delay and immediately after “Rienzi”; since it belongs to a quite different genre ( - the purely Romantic - ) & can be rehearsed at very short notice, I have agreed to their request, with the result that it will be performed here by the beginning of December, in other words sooner than in Berlin, where Lachner’s opera has to be given before work can begin on mine. - If only I could transfer the Dresden performances of my operas to Leipzig!
Enough! You will gather from all this my present cares and concerns! Do not be angry with me if I appear importunate, but continue to show your usual friendly disposition towards
Your
most obedient servant,
Richard Wagner.
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 50