My dear friend,
I have finally reached the point when I can at long last break my silence towards you. The contents of this letter will show you how many issues - and relatively important issues at that - I had to sort out in my own mind before I could write to you with the decisiveness which is now both necessary and possible.
A large part of the blame for my silence must be borne by my poor state of health. I have now spent over two whole months on my water-cure, and during this period especially it has been quite impossible for me to write to you as fully as I felt increasingly constrained to do, as each day passed. The most pressing reason for writing, and the one most difficult to resist, sprang from my reading of your brochure on my two operas which reached me here at the hydropathic establishment. Your rare friendship, the energetic love you feel for my works, your untiring eagerness to propagate those works, and, above all, the glorious intensity, the spirit, the delicacy and the boldness with which you express yourself in your eagerness to help me, - these qualities of yours moved me far too deeply and far too violently for me to be able to address you earlier to express my thanks, at a time when I was already in so agitated a state; I had to postpone doing so until such time as I had recovered my health and collected my thoughts sufficiently to be able to communicate my feelings more fully. - I hope that I have now reached that point, and my first words to you therefore are to say that the sacrifice which you have once more made for me in the name of our most beautiful and loving friendship has stirred me to the very depths of my being, bringing me joy and great happiness. You have moved me most profoundly each time you found yourself in complete agreement with me, since this sense of agreement is not something that already existed between us, rather was it necessary for us both to discover it first; above all, you have aroused my attention, interest and curiosity each time I have seen my original intentions reflected in the mirror of your unique and individual outlook, for it was precisely here that I was able to judge the impression which I was fortunate enough to have made on your over-generous artistic sensitivity.
What you have become to me in this way I recently sought to make publicly known and I did so - precisely because it was for public consumption - in terms of suitable sobriety, sticking closely to the purely factual aspects of our relationship in order to depict it for the benefit of those people who nowadays may not be able to conceive of such a friendship. I did so - urged on by an irresistible and heartfelt desire - in a “Communication to my Friends”, which I am publishing as a preface to the edition of my “three opera poems”. In this same piece I have said quite candidly that I already despaired of ever again undertaking another artistic venture and that it was to you alone and to your so successful intercession on my behalf that credit was due if I had now once again found the courage and will necessary for an artistic undertaking which I am dedicating to you and to those of my friends whom I epitomize as “the local concept: Weimar”. Timidity on the part of the good Messrs Härtel, the intended publishers of this edition, has caused them to take exception to certain passages in the preface, to which I myself certainly did not wish to attach any demonstrative meaning and which I could equally well have expressed differently, but, as a result of their objections, the appearance of the book has now been delayed to an extent which I find most vexatious for a number of very particular reasons. The public declaration which I have made here in respect of the fate of my forthcoming dramatic work now requires substantial modification, in accordance with my latest resolves, if it is to remain an accurate reflection of the true nature of my present thinking. However, even if this foreword - which I completed at the beginning of last August - is out of date by the time it finally appears in print, I nevertheless hope that the declaration in question will reach the general public unaltered: if the promise contained therein cannot be fulfilled by me in the way I have indicated there, it may none the less be interpreted by you and by my Weimar friends as an open demonstration of the sincere honesty of my intention as I then planned it; and I should like to think that in this public declaration I had offered some token of my gratitude for their feelings towards me, even if - as I say - I cannot show my gratitude in the way I had earlier promised.
But to you, my dear Liszt, I am now forced to reveal that my resolve to write a new opera for Weimar has assumed so fundamentally different an aspect that I can scarcely allow it to stand any longer as such. Let me inform you, in accord with the strictest truth, of the history of the artistic project on which I have been engaged for some time now, and the change which this plan had necessarily to undergo. -
In the autumn of 1848 I first sketched out the complete myth of the Nibelungs such as henceforth belongs to me as my own poetic property. My next attempt to present a crucial turning-point in the whole vast action, and to present it as a drama suited to our present-day stage, was “Siegfried’s Death”: after much uncertainty I finally reached the point in the autumn of 1850 of sketching the music for this drama, when I once again recognized the impossibility of ever seeing it adequately performed, and so I broke off the undertaking there and then. It was in order to rid myself of this mood of despondency that I wrote the book “Opera and Drama”. Then, last spring, your article on Lohengrin made such an inspiriting impression upon me that - for your sake - I quickly and cheerfully resumed my plans to complete a drama; I wrote to tell you this at the time. But I knew that “Siegfried’s Death” was for the moment impossible; I realized that I should first have to prepare the way for it with another drama, and so I took up a plan I had already been cherishing for some time, and began by making “Young Siegfried” the subject of an opera poem; in it, everything that is either retold in “Siegfried’s Death” or else assumed to be half-familiar to the audience was meant to be presented by means of actual events on stage and given a fresh and light-hearted treatment. The poem was soon sketched and completed. - I was on the point of sending it to you when I began to feel a strange sense of unease: I felt unable to send it to you as it stood without further ado; it was as if I had to explain to you much more - infinitely more - about it, partly concerning the manner of its execution and partly your necessary response to the poem itself. The first thing to emerge here was that, before appearing with this poem in the presence of my friends, I should first have to communicate a great many other things to them besides: that was why I wrote the extensive preface to my three older opera poems which I have already mentioned. I now planned to set about the musical composition of the work: and, to my delight, I observed that the music to these verses came quite naturally and easily, entirely of its own accord. But my initial start on the work reminded me that I would undermine my health completely if, without first having taken proper care of it, I yielded at once to my impulse, and - presumably without interruption - completed what I had begun at a single stroke. Only when I moved to the hydropathic establishment did I feel the need finally to send you the poem: - but, strangely enough, something continued to hold me back; I continued to hesitate, sensing that, on becoming acquainted with the poem, you would initially feel a certain embarrassment at not knowing for certain what you should make of it, nor whether you should place your hopes on it or your mistrust. - Now that I have considered the matter calmly, my plan has finally become clear to me in all its logical consistency. Listen! -
Even this “Young Siegfried” is only a fragment and, as an individual whole, it can only make its rightful and indubitable impression when it assumes its necessary place within the completed whole, a place which - in accordance with the plan I have now conceived - I am now assigning to it, together with “Siegfried’s Death”. In both these dramas a wealth of necessary allusions was left simply in narrative form or else had to be worked out for himself by the listener: everything that gives the intrigue and the characters of these two dramas their infinitely moving and far-reaching significance would have had to be omitted from the stage action and communicated on a merely conceptual level. According to my newly acquired and innermost conviction, however, a work of art - and hence the basic drama - can only make its rightful impression if the poetic intent is fully presented to the senses in every one of its important moments; and I least of all can now afford to sin against this insight which I now recognize as true. In order to be perfectly understood, I must therefore communicate my entire myth, in its deepest and widest significance, with total artistic clarity; no part of it should have to be supplied by the audience’s having to think about it or reflect on it; every unbiased human feeling must be able to grasp the whole through its organs of artistic perception, because only then can it properly absorb the least detail. There are, accordingly, two principal moments in my myth which still remain to be depicted on stage, and these are both alluded to in “Young Siegfried”: the first in Brünnhilde’s lengthy narration following her awakening (third act); the second in the scene between Alberich and the Wanderer in the second, and between the Wanderer and Mime in the first act. - That my mind was made up in this matter not only as a result of artistic reflection but, more particularly, as a result of the splendid nature of the material, which lends itself uncommonly well to presentation on stage, you will readily understand once you have taken a closer look at that material. Imagine the wondrously ill-starred love of Siegmund and Siegelind; Wodan in his deeply mysterious relationship to that love; then the discord between him and Fricka, his furious self-mastery when - for the sake of custom - he decrees Siegmund’s death; finally, the glorious Valkyrie, Brünnhilde, divining Wodan’s innermost thought, defying the god and being punished by him: imagine the wealth of incentive as indicated in the scene between the Wanderer and the Wala, but then - more fully - in Brünnhilde’s narration which I have already mentioned - imagine all this as the material for a drama which will precede the two Siegfrieds, and you will conceive that it is not mere reflection but, more particularly, inspiration which has encouraged me to adopt my latest plan!
This plan will now comprise three dramas: 1st, The Valkyrie. 2nd, Young Siegfried. 3rd, Siegfried’s Death. In order to present everything complete, these three dramas must additionally be preceded by a great prelude: The Rape of the Rhinegold. It takes as its subject the detailed depiction of all that occurs in “Young Siegfried” in narrative form, as it relates to the theft of the gold, the origins of the Nibelung hoard, the abduction of this hoard by Wodan, and Alberich’s curse. -
Thanks to the clarity of presentation which will thus have been made possible, I shall now - by discarding, at the same time, all the narration-like passages which are now so extensive or else by compressing them into a number of much more concise moments - acquire sufficient space to exploit to the full the wealth of emotive associations contained in the work, whereas previously, with my earlier, half-epic mode of presentation, I was obliged to prune everything laboriously and thus to weaken its impact. I mention only one episode: -
Alberich comes up out of the depths of the earth to the three daughters of the Rhine; he pursues them with his loathsome attentions; rejected by the first, he turns to the second: joking and teasing him, they all spurn the goblin. Then the Rhinegold begins to gleam; it attracts Alberich; he asks what use it serves? The girls declare that it serves for their enjoyment and sport; its gleam illumines the depths of the floodwaters with its rapturous shimmering: but many are the wonders that could be wrought by means of the gold, great are the power and the might, the riches and the dominion that could be won by the man who knew how to forge it into a ring: but only he who renounces love could understand that! but so that none may steal the gold, they themselves are appointed its guardians: the man who approaches them has indeed no desire for the gold; Alberich, at least, does not seem to desire it, since he behaves like a man in love. They laugh at him anew. The Nibelung then grows angry: he forswears love, steals the gold and carries it off into the depths. - Enough of this individual detail! now my plan for the practical realization of the whole!
I cannot contemplate a division of the constituent parts of this great whole without ruining my intention in advance. The whole complex of dramas must be staged at the same time in rapid succession, and for that reason I can envisage only the following circumstances as being favourable to the outward feasibility of the plan: - the performance of my Nibelung dramas must take place at a great festival which may perhaps be organized for the unique purpose of this performance. It must then be given on three successive days, with the introductory prelude being performed on the preceding evening. Once I have achieved such a performance under these conditions, the whole work may then be repeated on another occasion, and only after that may the individual dramas, which in themselves are intended as entirely independent pieces, be performed as people wish: but, whatever happens, these performances must be preceded by an impression of the complete production which I myself shall have prepared.
Where and in what circumstances such a performance may be feasible is something I do not need to worry about for now; for I must first of all complete this great work of mine, and this task will take me at least three years, from the time I have paid some heed to my health. A fortunate accretion of wealth in the Ritter family, who are such good friends of mine, has meant that I can now apply myself to my artistic work calmly and undisturbed by material cares throughout the period in question, and, indeed, for the rest of my life. But once I have completed my great work, the rest - I hope - will follow as a matter of course, so that it is staged in accordance with my wishes. If Weimar is still standing then, and if you yourself have been more fortunate in your efforts to produce something decent than now, alas, appears to be the case (and more than simply “appears”!), we shall then see what is to be done in the matter. -
However bold, unusual, nay, even fanciful this plan of mine may strike you, you may nevertheless be assured that it is not the result of some superficial and calculating whim, but that it has impressed itself upon me as a necessary consequence of the nature and content of the subject which now occupies my mind and drives me to carry it through to its completion. To complete it as only I, as poet and musician, may be allowed to do is for now the only thing I see ahead of me: nothing else must disturb me at present. Knowing the way you think, I do not doubt for a moment that you will agree with me in this and, indeed, encourage me in my resolve, even though in this way a wish which I find deeply flattering! - your wish to perform a new work of mine so soon after the last one - must necessarily be left unfulfilled. -
But only now do I confess that, at the same time as deciding on this definitive change of plan, I also felt relieved of an almost oppressive sense of embarrassment, - my embarrassment at expecting the present Weimar Theatre to stage Young Siegfried. Only now, together with this explanation, can I send you the poem of “Young Siegfried” with a light heart, - only now that I know you will not read it through with the sense of concern which it would necessarily have caused you, if you had had to think of how I was going to complete it and, more especially, of its performance at the Weimar Theatre - such as it is at present and such as it must inevitably remain. Let us not delude ourselves in this matter! What you — and you alone — have so far done for me in Weimar is astounding. But it was even more successful from my own point of view: without you I should by now have disappeared without trace, instead of which you have, by dint of means which you alone had at your command, ensured that I now enjoy the attention of all lovers of art; indeed, you have acted with such energy and such success that these efforts of yours on behalf of me and my reputation are solely and uniquely to thank for the fact that I am now able even to think of realizing the plans which I have just communicated to you. I can see all this with total clarity and have no hesitation in describing you as the creator of my present position, a position which is perhaps not entirely lacking in future prospects.
But I now go on to ask: - do you still place your hopes in Weimar?
With sad sincerity I tell you that I am bound to regard your efforts in Weimar as - fruitless. You know from your own experience that you have only to turn your back for a moment and the most rank baseness springs up from the very ground where you have striven to plant the choicest fruits; you return, and have scarcely reploughed half the ground when you see weeds shooting up again more brazenly than before. - You are in Weimar: you praise the Court’s love of art - ? Do you not recall the most illustrious Karl August allowing his friend Göthe to be hounded from the same stage by - a poodle, - that same stage on which, in far less favourable circumstances, you now intend to plant the banner of an art for which almost all means of presentation, all use of habit, nay, all hopes of a true (as opposed to artificial) success are missing? - Indeed, I can look on only in sadness! Beside you I see only stupidity, narrow-mindedness, baseness and - the empty conceit of jealous courtiers who are envious - with such lamentable right - of genius’s every success! -
But - that is more than enough on this loathsome subject! For my own part, it no longer troubles me, for I have sorted out my own feelings in the matter: but - it troubles me on your account! I hope that, for the sake of your own good humour, you are not too late in reaching the same conclusion! —
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 130