Dear friend,
The King’s signature has just arrived. It guarantees a credit of 100,000 thalers from his own privy purse, and is intended to cover the costs of stage equipment, scenery and gas lighting: during the period of the loan all moneys received from our patrons are to be credited to the royal exchequer until such time as all advances are repaid, and during this period the said acquisitions are to remain the property of the Royal Court Secretariat.
These are the terms of the agreement.
You will see from this that we are simply enabled to go ahead, but that we have not received any additional funds, and therefore remain, as before, dependent upon the support of the general public if the whole undertaking is still to be made possible.
I would beg you therefore to proceed with caution and circumspection in all your announcements and public statements in pursuance of the following two aims:
1. To represent this new facility as a guarantee that the enterprise will take place.
2. Not make people think that nothing more needs to be done now.
We consider it best, therefore, simply to report the facts, namely:
That fixed contracts with the painter Hoffmann in Vienna and the Court Theatre technician Brandt have already been signed, enabling them to produce the scenery and stage equipment as soon as possible.
I think this will be sufficient to allay all fears. I shall now write to my chosen singers in much the same vein, and also issue instructions with regard to the orchestra, all of which will shortly give a different complexion to the affair.
It would please me all the more, my dear friend, if I knew that all this had brought you genuine pleasure, since I, alas, get little enjoyment from this news, so wearied and careworn am I by all that has happened that the outcome leaves me pretty cold, and mindful only of my duties.
Sincerest good wishes to you all from all of us here!
Yours,
Richard Wagner.
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 422