[...] Do you know how I managed to get Rienzi accepted in Hanover? Since you wrote to tell me that, having heard Tichatscheck in the part, Niemann was afraid of not being able to sustain it, I wrote to the latter and asked him whether it had not occurred to him that T. was simply trying to cover up his true weakness by letting loose such a tremendous, and often totally unnecessary, volume of sound and by showing off his powers of vocal endurance in this way, or whether he believed that there was really nothing else to Rienzi than merrily bawling away at the top of his voice for hours on end? Certainly, T. was impressive in this, I told Niemann, but his only real concern was to demonstrate that he was inimitable in the part; purely out of malice he showed Niemann what he was capable of, although Niemann is still young and not such a distinguished singer. I then went on to demonstrate how the role ought to be interpreted in order to meet the challenge that I have set here, instead of the singer’s simply solving it by his powers of vocal endurance. I went on to say that if he performed the role with the requisite originality, and according to my own interpretation, he would be able to show Tich. what Rienzi really involves. This is my honest opinion, and I can tell you, too, that T. is far from being my ideal as Rienzi. In a role like this, where his only assets are his vocal stamina and volume of sound, he does me incalculable harm, and I am keen to see a more intelligent performer meet this challenge in order to show, at the same time, that T. is not alone in being able to sustain the part. - This suggested a different concept to Niemann; and only now has a date been set for the opera in H. - You may perhaps reproach me to some extent for betraying T. But, my dear child, you must remember that all my life I have been afflicted by the intimacies of these superficial and obstinate people, although in reality we are worlds apart, and that I have always found myself at odds with them. I cannot deny that I set little store by friendships of this nature. His attachment to me touches me: that is why I am ultimately prepared to put up with a great deal from him. -
In general, my long exile has made me fairly touchy as far as Dresden’s art-world is concerned. I am beginning to find certain tiresome gossip extremely annoying. So even Devrient could find nothing better to say about Tristan than to remark on the long death-scene in the third act? This act, then, is nothing but people popping off? Well, I see a good deal else here, and even the practical aspects of the performance are well thought-out. The woman really belongs in the theatre, to which - as I hear from you with some astonishment - she would like to return. Can she not conceive of art as art, instead of always as theatrical routine?
- Tell Papa Fischer, whoever heard of a poet who has written a drama while in love? It is as though Schiller needed to live with a band of robbers in order to write the “Robbers”, or Shakespeare to have been a jealous husband to write “Othello”. One cannot write anything that is true to life, more especially in drama, unless one stands apart from it and sees it, as it were, facing one; the poet is incapable of writing clearly if he is in the thick of things. But not everyone can understand this, least of all that the poet, precisely because he is a poet, portrays a world he has never seen, just as Jean Paul described Italy without ever having travelled there. - I still recall how surprised Count Redern was in Berlin when he made my acquaintance after the flying Dutchman: “My God - he said - you’re such a friendly, agreeable person; to judge by your opera, I’d have expected a gloomy, sombre and gruff individual.” - Oh dear, - I suppose I shall have to listen to a good deal of such nonsense when I start seeing people again! Well, I shall soon grow indifferent to it! For the present I suppose I am somewhat melancholy on the whole; I admit that my secludedness has its disadvantages. In addition, I am never fully fit; my sensitivity continues to increase. My long lack of exercise played havoc with my bowels. I am again suffering badly from a haemorrhoidal complaint, and in order to deal with it have again attacked my stomach with clysters. Above all I suffer from colds. I have never been so frozen as in Italy. It must be said that my apartment is really intended only for the summer, since it does not see the sun, the bedroom never. It makes my hair stand on end to think of what I have spent on heating these pitiful stoves, so badly insulated are the doors and windows. My hopes remained pinned on an early spring, when I intend to enjoy the apartment properly at long last. But it will then be time for me to move out!! -[...]
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 231