Best thanks, dearest old friend, for your letter! I answer it at once, because you therein send me a piece of news which certainly forces me to haste!
Now, I beg you most earnestly to render me a service of friendship, and rouse yourself at once. Point out in my name the danger in which that business hovers, and say that I have received a confidential hint as to X.'s position, which has determined me to make an immediate and fitting end of that wretched affair. Those to whom I made over the ownership of that copyright, until my debts to them were fully covered, must declare through or by their lawyer whether they wish to protect that right completely and against all circumstances that are threatening it. Already have I seen with despair how badly the business was conducted under the present so favourable circumstances. As yet the pianoforte score without words of Tannhäuser has not appeared, which is an irreparable loss. Here in London I am informed that the pianoforte score of the Flying Dutchman had recently been asked for but not received, because the old edition was out of print: so there was no thought of bringing out a new one in good time! If things go on like this, and if I remain without a satisfactory answer, I shall have to consider my own property threatened; and if my creditors do not at once assure me through their lawyer that on their side everything possible shall be done to secure the greatest advantage from the rights made over to them, so that all the good may be got out of the business which it now can offer, I shall find myself compelled to employ another lawyer, who for his part will protect my right, and — though in the first place in the interest of my creditors — will take over the management of the business, so as to conduct it in the manner which I may consider the most profitable. I beg you, dear old fellow, do me the kindness, and press for an immediate answer!
That property is indeed the only thing that can afford me any profit. I have cast away those operas: from them I ask for nothing further than that they should bring in money.
It is otherwise with the works which I have now in hand: for their creation I only took heart when I resolved to look away entirely from our theatres for their performance, and to devote all my life's strength to producing them one day, under exceptional circumstances, as a dramatic-music festival. If it is granted to me in the future to acquire the means necessary for this, well and good. If not, I shall content myself with this: that I made the effort. But only such a prospect gives me heart to trouble about my art: for our usual theatre-repertoire with all its wants (to which Flotow and Meyerbeer, etc., can best minister) I work no more. This is my fixed opinion, my firm-set will! This will perhaps explain to you the form and fashion of my present composition: it does not occur to me while working at it to think of any existing theatre, with which from henceforth I have nothing more to do; for works like my new one shall not be given between Martha and the Prophet. For the rest, I am surprised that you should consider the mere constitution of the orchestra the principal difficulty! Nowadays one can have for money as many instrumentalists as one wants, and Meyerbeer for the performance of his Huguenots in Paris has seven harps: so make your mind easy on that point. But singers who are not … like your theatre-rabble; but true, intelligent, and energetic interpreters! That is a much greater difficulty, and it will probably cost me years of preparation before I can train them up for myself from talented young people. How I shall do all this must for the present remain my secret: but though you do not yourself assist in a production of it at Dresden, I hope, at least, that you will hear it given under my direction — to which performance you are herewith most cordially invited. Now, concerning the score of the Rheingold, I beg you to send it at once by goods-post to my address here, together with the copy so far as Wölfel has got with it. I am too much in need of it to be able to wait any longer: I will have the copy finished in Zurich instead, where I have now hunted up a good copyist. I will settle Wölfel's account with you at once. So, all that is arranged.
It was a great piece of folly for me to come to London, for which I now atone by enduring until the last concert. Not, indeed, that I have to complain of the public or anything of that sort: that is all just as it is everywhere else, neither better nor worse; and, besides, the public of the Philharmonic Concerts is very favourably disposed towards me: but it is not in my line to conduct concerts. A Beethoven Symphony certainly gives me great pleasure: but a whole concert of this kind, with everything which it includes, deeply disgusts me; and with great inner vexation I see myself compelled to conduct stuff which I thought I should never have to perform again. Moreover, I see that here in England I have no chance of anything, under never so favourable circumstances. Even a German Opera, with my works, would give me no pleasure; for no performance could ever be so good as I should wish, for the reason that very few rehearsals can be held, because everything is so frightfully dear. So I only endure here, without joy or hope. I have paid a visit to the Ney, and also heard her in Fidelio, in which, however, she did not satisfy me. To-day she sings in Verdi's Trovatore, in which she is certainly more at home: I heard from the orchestra that she had already had an extraordinary success at the rehearsal. She is not allowed to sing at concerts so long as she is engaged at the Opera.
So I am spending my time in somewhat melancholy fashion, amid people who are foreign and unsympathetic to me; and I rejoice at the thought of returning at the end of July to my dear, glorious Switzerland, which I hope I shall never leave again. Before I depart I will write a thoroughly sensible letter to Heine: tell him that, and give him a thousand greetings from us. Also hearty greetings to yours: thanks for your faithful friendship, and be assured of my constant love. Farewell.
Your
R. W.
22, Portland Terrace, Regent's Park, London.
Source: Richard Wagner's Letters to His Dresden Friends, Theodor Uhlig, Wilhelm Fischer, and Ferdinand Heine, trans. J. S. Shedlock (Scribner & Welford, 1890), No. 132