Most precious of men, most dearly beloved of friends, my royal lord,
A harsher blow could not have befallen me than the news that my exalted benefactor is resolved to attend not a single performance of my Stage Dedication Drama. Who inspired this highest and final outpouring of all my spiritual powers? In perpetual regard for whom did I carry it out in the joyful prospect of a successful outcome? What had been pledged as my finest success has now become my life’s greatest failure: what is the point of it all if I cannot give joy to him?
And - it is the last thing I shall write. The tremendous feeling of weariness which leaves me today with only the strength to pen these few lines tells me where I stand with my powers. Nothing more can be expected of me. -
Forgive me, my exalted benefactor, if I cannot acquiesce in my fate with the requisite calm and composure. I do not know at what straw I may yet be able to clutch, since I see it is a question not merely of a private performance (which would have been Your Majesty’s to command on any day you had ordered) but that the private performance you want should take place not in the festival theatre in Bayreuth but in the Court Theatre in Munich, - a request about which I should have no misgivings inasmuch as I have in the past been deeply grateful to be able to make such private performances available to my exalted lord in the Munich theatre - but it is quite impossible for these later performances in Munich to present my work to my King in the pure and transfiguring light that can be achieved only through my own preparations in the festival theatre here; my most dearly beloved lord, let it be performed for you here, by me, at least once, for the first time. - Otherwise - there is no hope! - Oh, why was this theatre not built in Munich! - then all would have been well! -
But enough, and no doubt more than enough from one who may be hard to forgive! May fate grant me but one final request: to beg for your mercy! -
From one who gladly and fervently longs to die soon,
My revered lord and master’s
most loyal vassal
Richard Wagner
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 494