What a poet I am! Heaven help me, I am growing quite presumptuous! - It is this interminable translation of Tannhäuser that has made me so conceited: not until I had to go through the work word by word did I finally realize how concise and unalterable this poem already is. Take away a word or a meaning, and both I and my translators were forced to admit that an essential element would be lost. Initially I believed that it would be possible to make small alterations: we were forced to abandon each and every one of them as impossible. I was most surprised at this, and then found, in comparison, that I really know of very little else to which I can ascribe this same quality. In a word, I soon had no choice but to admit to myself that the poem could simply not be improved on. What do you say to that? I can better improve on the music. The orchestra in particular will be given a number of more expressive and richer passages. Only the scene with Venus will be completely rewritten. I found Frau Venus somewhat stiff; a few good qualities, but no real life. Here I have added quite a number of new verses: the goddess of joy will be almost touching, and Tannhäuser’s torment will be real, so that his cry of Mary bursts forth from his soul like a cry of deepest anguish. This is something I could not have done previously. In order to compose the music, I shall need to be in a very good mood indeed, and have no idea as yet where I shall find it! -
A prose translation of the four pieces: Dutchman, Tannhäuser, Lohengrin and Tristan is soon to be published, and I plan to write a preface for it which I chiefly intend shall give my friends here some information concerning the formal aspect of my art. I have just been through these translations, and was again obliged to relive these poems of mine in every detail. Lohengrin affected me very deeply yesterday, and I cannot help thinking it the most tragic of all poems, since reconciliation is really to be found only if one casts a terribly wide-ranging glance at the world.
Only a profound acceptance of the doctrine of metempsychosis has been able to console me by revealing the point at which all things finally converge at the same level of redemption, after the various individual existences - which run alongside each other in time - have come together in a meaningful way outside time. According to the beautiful Buddhist doctrine, the spotless purity of Lohengrin is easily explicable in terms of his being the continuation of Parzifal - who was the first to strive towards purity. Elsa, similarly, would reach the level of Lohengrin through being reborn. Thus my plan for the “Victors” struck me as being the concluding section of Lohengrin. Here “Savitri” (Elsa) entirely reaches the level of “Ananda”. In this way, all the terrible tragedy of life would be attributable to our dislocation in time and space: but since time and space are merely our way of perceiving things, but otherwise have no reality, even the greatest tragic pain must be explicable to those who are truly clear-sighted as no more than an individual error: I believe it is so! And, in all truth, it is a question simply of what is pure and noble, something which, in itself, is painless. -
I can do nothing but prattle when writing to you: nothing else is worth the effort! And only with you do I enjoy prattling on about such things! Time and space - which, after all, bring nothing but torment and distress - then disappear for me! And - ah! how rarely do I feel in the mood for such prattle! -
Tristan is and remains a miracle to me! I find it more and more difficult to understand how I could have done such a thing: when I read through it again, my eyes and ears fell open with amazement! How terribly I shall have to atone for this work one day, if ever I plan to perform it complete: I can see quite clearly the most unspeakable sufferings ahead of me; for if I am honest with myself, I have far overstepped the limits of what we are capable of achieving in this field; uniquely gifted performers, who alone would be equal to the task, are incredibly rare in the world. And yet I cannot resist the temptation: if only I could hear the orchestra!! -
Parzival has again been stirring within me a good deal; I can see more and more in it, and with ever-increasing clarity; one day, when everything has matured within me, it will be an unprecedented pleasure to complete this poem. But many a long year may pass before then! And I should like to be satisfied for once with the poem alone. I shall keep my distance from it as long as I can, and occupy myself with it only when it really forces itself on my attention. This strange creative process will then allow me to forget just how wretched I am. - Shall I prattle on about this? Did I not tell you once before that the fabulously wild messenger of the grail is to be one and the same person as the enchantress of the second act. Since this dawned on me, almost everything else about the subject has become clear to me. This strangely horrifying creature who, slave-like, serves the Knights of the Grail with untiring eagerness, who carries out the most unheard-of tasks, and who lies in a corner waiting only until such time as she is given some unusual and arduous task to perform - and who at times disappears completely, no one knows how or where? -
Then all at once we meet her again, fearfully tired, wretched, pale and an object of horror: but once again untiring in serving the Holy Grail with doglike devotion, while all the time revealing a secret contempt for its knights: her eye seems always to be seeking the right one, - and she has already deceived herself once - but did not find him. But not even she herself knows what she is searching for: it is purely instinctive. -
When Parzival, the foolish lad, arrives in the land, she cannot avert her eyes from him: strange are the things that must go on inside her; she does not know it, but she clings to him. He is appalled - but he, too, feels drawn to her: he understands nothing. (Here it is a question of the poet having to invent everything!) Only the manner of execution can say anything here! -
But you can gain an idea of what I mean if you listen to the way that Brünnhilde listened to Wotan. - This woman suffers unspeakable restlessness and excitement: the old esquire had noticed this on previous occasions, each time that she had shortly afterwards disappeared. This time she is in the tensest possible state. What is going on inside her? Is she appalled at the thought of renewed flight, does she long to be freed from it? Does she hope - for an end to it all? What hopes does she have of Parzival? Clearly she attaches unprecedented importance to him! - But all is gloomy and vague: no knowledge, only instinct and dusky twilight? - Cowering in a corner, she witnesses Anfortas’s agonized scene: she gazes with a strangely inquisitive look (sphinx-like) at Parzival. He, too, is - stupid, understands nothing, stares in amazement - says nothing. He is driven out. The messenger of the Grail sinks to the ground with a shriek; she then disappears. (She is forced to wander again.)
Now can you guess who this wonderfully enchanting woman is whom Parzival finds in the strange castle where his chivalrous spirit leads him? Guess what happens here, and how it all turns out. I shall say no more today! -
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 261