My adored and wonderful friend,
How joyful, and how sad, it must make me to think of you! At one moment my heart leaps, and beats more proudly, when I hear how fair, how glorious and how secure is the path which my royal angel treads, arousing amazement and enchantment on every side: but at the next moment I am bound to grow fearful and anxious when I hear that he is ill, unhappy and hindered. And all this close at hand, yet so remote that I feel as though it is merely a dream. - How strange a destiny! How extraordinary, how curious it all is, like a fairytale which, in turn, has actually come to life for me! -
My dearly beloved, unique and most glorious friend! With tears in my eyes I ask: - How are you? Are you sad? Are you happy? - How does my most gracious monarch feel? -
Today is Good Friday again! - O, blessed day! Most deeply portentous day in the world! Day of redemption! God’s suffering!! Who can grasp the enormity of it? And yet, this same ineffable mystery - is it not the most familiar of mankind’s secrets? God, the Creator, - he must remain totally unintelligible to the world: - God, the loving teacher, is dearly beloved, but not understood: - but the God who suffers, - His name is inscribed in our hearts in letters of fire; all the obstinacy of existence is washed away by our immense pain at seeing God suffering! The teaching which we could not comprehend, it now affects us: God is within us, - the world has been overcome! Who created it? An idle question! Who overcame it? God within our hearts, - God whom we comprehend in the deepest anguish of fellow-suffering! -
A warm and sunny Good Friday, with its mood of sacred solemnity, once inspired me with the idea of writing “Parzival”: since then it has lived on within me and prospered, like a child in its mother’s womb. With each Good Friday it grows a year older, and I then celebrate the day of its conception, knowing that its birthday will follow one day. - Last Good Friday I spent as a fugitive in Munich: I was travelling around at the time, but did not wish to continue my journey that day; sick and suffering, I hoped for a good night’s rest. I crept through the streets of the town: the weather was raw, and overcast. The townsfolk in mourning surged out of the various churches and over the city squares. In a little side-street, in a picture-dealer’s window, I first caught sight of the picture of the youthful successor of the monarch who had just departed this life. I was held enthralled by the ineffable charm of those inconceivably soulful features. I sighed. “Were he not your King, you would no doubt wish to make his acquaintance”, - I said to myself. “Now he is King, he cannot find out about you!” Silent and lonely, I wandered on. - Sad though I was, I none the less marked my “Parzival’s” day of conception - this Good Friday, too - indeed, the picture in the little side-street had brought me instinctively back to my hero: the young King and Parzival merged into one; a presentiment dimly dawned - I was so utterly lacking in hope! - and soon it became a memory; I recalled the sunny Good Friday of that first conception. A loving and tenderly devoted woman’s heart had at that time taken me into its care and protection: the hope that I had cherished for years had now come to pass; I had been able to move into a little house of my own, with its own attractive garden, wonderfully situated with a splendid view over Lake Zurich and the Alps. I sat there - it was the first fine spring day! - on the verandah of my refuge, the bells were ringing, - the birds were singing, the first flowers gazed up at me; it was then, in the depths of my ecstasy, that Parzival was conceived! - I now wanted to return to Lake Zurich, to see whether I could find another little house there, peaceful and isolated. Overcast and cold outside, no hope within me, - tired, longing for death, - what were the thoughts that did not pass through my mind that last Good Friday, here in Munich, - near to the supreme and glorious radiance of my life, the sun which was to illumine my night, my redeemer, the saviour of my existence! -
It is - wonderful, - for it is more wondrous than anything any poet could ever invent! - Yes! He found me! My adored friend! - Could I ever leave him? — Enough! - thus did I celebrate Good Friday! - Now “Tristan” has been born; he is growing and prospering: each day brings us renewed cause for celebration, - a feast of celebration in honour of King “Parzival”! -
Truly yours for all eternity -
Richard Wagner
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 322