Dear kind friend Hill,
To be brief! - No Bayreuth this summer: instead we have to go to London, where I shall be giving concerts to cover last year’s deficit. I am taking Materna and Unger with me, and - as an absolute must - should also like to have - you. (Wotan’s scenes. Dutchman, Telramund. Wolfram etc.) Time: (the whole of) May and (part of) June. Keep your expenses down, and think you are returning to Bayreuth, except that on this occasion we have to succeed because of the deficit. Will you help in this way to make a free man of me, and place me in a position where I can continue to deal creditably with the festival? Will you?? You shall certainly have no cause to regret it. You may also be able to sing in the theatres there, and earn some extra money. -
You see, best of friends, how things are, and what satisfaction it must give me to be a German.
With the most sincere good wishes, I am
Respectfully yours,
Richard Wagner.
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 446