God, how much I have thought of you recently, my dearest Tscheckel! How often have I told people the story of how you forbade the copyists, following the first performance of Rienzi, to make the cuts that I had indicated and how, when I took you to task for this, you retorted: “No, I won’t allow any cuts! it’s too divine!” How the hot tears ran down my cheeks. -
I couldn’t help recalling this now that I find myself dealing with a coward who runs around whining loudly that he is ruining his voice with my Tannhäuser. You can imagine how I feel!
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 266