God knows whether or not you will receive this letter, dear Minna, or whether you received yesterday’s letter in time to set off on the journey here. But I shall write to you, none the less, so that at least I have someone to talk to! It was after midnight when I finally got to bed last night, & at 5 in the morning I sent for a light & had the fire lit since it was pointless remaining in bed any longer, unable to sleep. You know, if you had been here, we could have gossiped all night together, - but I was on my own! God, what does one not feel on a night like last night: how many memories came flooding back! It was one of the most decisive evenings of my entire life! - Imagine, - I was appearing before a completely unknown audience with this fantastical opera of mine, a work totally remote from anything they had previously heard or grown to enjoy & offering, on the face of it, so little that is appealing or rewarding! I felt their hostility quite keenly: there was not a single person in the audience whom I knew personally, none of them was predisposed in my favour; — they all sat there feeling only their customary cold curiosity & thinking: well, what sort of an affair is this flying Dutchman going to be? - No one lifted a finger at the end of the Overture, - they listened to the melancholy first act in a mood of expectant curiosity & amazement, without knowing what decision to reach: - now & again one of the singers was greeted with effortful applause; - in a word, I realized the position I was in, - but I did not despair, since I could see that the performance was going extraordinarily well. The second act began, & it gradually dawned on me that I had achieved my aim: I had woven a spell around my audience, such that the first act had transported them into that strange mood which forced them to follow me wherever I chose to take them. Their interest grew, tension turned to excitement, heightened involvement - finally to enthusiasm, & even before the curtain had fallen on the second act, I was celebrating a triumph such as few, I am sure, have been granted. Never before - not even with Rienzi in Dresden - have I seen & heard such a prolonged outburst of enthusiasm as manifested itself here once the curtain had fallen: - of all the assembled company, there was not a single one of them, be he high or low, prince or pauper, who could not be seen & heard shouting & roaring with the rest of them. When I finally appeared on stage with the singers, I thought the whole house was going to collapse! -
The last act was child’s play: the scenery worked a treat & made a splendid impression; the whole thing was played at great speed, & the ending, which was very well staged, came with surprising rapidity. Well before the final curtain fell, the audience’s enthusiasm broke out anew & raged for an eternity before I could extricate myself from the orchestra and appear on stage with the singers, who had been waiting for me in the wings. - In short, my dear wife, I have won a remarkable victory: the extraordinary & almost unprecedented nature of it can be appreciated only by those who are in a position accurately to assess all the circumstances involved, & the present state of our operas, as well as understand how totally different & unfamiliar is the direction I have embarked upon with my Dutchman. -[...]
[...]
Today I am dining with Meyerbeer, tomorrow with Küstner. I did not see Meyerbeer again after the performance. The King was present, & someone who observed him closely throughout the performance assured me that he had enjoyed it enormously. Mendelssohn, with whom I also dined on one occasion, favoured me by coming on stage after the performance, embracing me & congratulating me most warmly. -
[...]
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 62