Most honoured Sir,
The extent to which I am beholden unto you for the great kindness & sympathetic interest which you have shown me in respect of my opera “Rienzi” was something I felt in a particularly lively fashion when you were good enough to send me a copy of your review in the Spener’sche Zeitung; I scarcely know what I have done to deserve such unselfish interest on your part, & the only reply I can offer is to thank you in the most sincere terms for all that you have done for me.
Since you wish it - & certainly not to tempt you into placing me under a renewed obligation - I hasten to submit a brief & factual report on the success of my “flying Dutchman”, which has just received its third performance. I am enclosing a copy of the libretto, from which you will see how completely this opera differs in style from that of “Rienzi”, indeed, how far it diverges in many essential points from all that our audiences have come exclusively to regard as the leading operatic genre. You will find that I have allowed a simple tale to unfold of its own accord, without endowing it with this or that modern operatic ingredient such as is generally considered necessary nowadays. The French versifier who adapted my sketch (the authorship of which is common knowledge) has completely destroyed the marvellous aura of the tale by weaving into it episodes such as are to be found in every contemporary French opera. Although I felt I had solved the problem by simplifying the plot as far as possible, I could not conceal from myself the fact that I was risking a great deal more by appearing before the general public in what is at present so alien a guise, since there is no doubt but that audiences came with totally different expectations of the work. In this opera I have included no pageantry, nor any thunderous finales straining for theatrical effect, etc. For that reason I had prepared myself for the realization that audiences would reconcile themselves to what I was offering them only after several performances. I was all the more surprised to meet with the most brilliant success at the very first performance, and to be assured that I had succeeded in winning over the audience right from the outset. The first act, as you will see from the libretto, is really only an introduction, but once it had put the audience in the right mood of suspense, they were swept along irresistibly by the work, not least because of the highly original & affecting acting of Schröder-Devrient; I & the singers were called on stage & greeted by tumultuous applause, which was repeated at the end of the third act which, moreover, contains the scene with the ghost ship & a rapid unfolding of the dramatic catastrophe. - The second performance was an even greater success (a very rare occurrence here in Dresden), since the audience was now more familiar with certain individual details which had been overlooked in the first overall impression; after the singers had taken their curtain calls, I myself was twice called upon to take a bow, just as on the opening night. There was similar applause at the third performance which took place yesterday.
I confess that I am prouder of this success than of the success of Rienzi, since in this last-named opera I had recourse to far more superficial means, & the work as a whole conforms much more to our current conceptions of a grand opera.
[...]
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 54