Esteemed Friend!
Thank you for once again letting me have news of you and Richard! You can believe that lately we have thought much and often of you. The reports which our newspapers gave about the three Tannhäuser performances we have read partly with indignation and partly with sorrow, and what was contained in these was only confirmed by your letter. I also am of the opinion that the opera has failed principally through party intrigues, yet I believe that want of understanding by the French also plays a part in the matter. In this they have exhibited their incapacity and proved that they have no susceptibility to real poetry. Among them there are a number of more gifted natures who take an interest in the newness and beauty of Wagnerian works, but for the greater part of them it is a closed book. Nevertheless, I believe that even there Wagnerian music has a future, for the really beautiful, great, and true cannot be misunderstood or crushed for long; it forces its way triumphantly, wrests for itself the recognition that is due it, and exerts the most powerful influence on the taste of the public and the trend of the time in art and knowledge. Significant enough is the course which the Wagnerian muse has taken in Germany, where its sway is now generally acknowledged. Not without battle has it achieved its mastery; here also it had its decided opponents in the form of the accustomed, the traditional, the old, the well-established; and if, notwithstanding, it won from the very beginning a party for itself (and not the worst) among the people, the young, this then was the consequence much more of a dim feeling, a presentiment of the deep meaning of the new Wagnerian ideas, than of a clear perception and a conscious judgment. Indeed, Wagner himself has experienced this process of development within him. Even he at first held fast to the traditional, and only by degrees forsook the accustomed paths and followed new, hitherto unwonted tendencies into which he irresistibly drew along his fellow-countrymen.
I can only approve the fact that Wagner first gave the Parisians Tannhäuser and not Rienzi, as he did many other times. With the latter he would not have revealed his characteristic tendency and if he had let Tannhäuser follow later, it would have given the public quite a jolt before it could be brought around to the right point of view. Here with us we experienced that, and in the beginning it was to the detriment of Tannhäuser. If one learns to know Rienzi first, one expects something similar in Tannhäuser and then feels disappointed and unsatisfied. To be sure, at that time when Wagner first produced his operas in Dresden, he had not yet entered upon any definite tendency and could not give any more than just what he had. Now, however, that is somewhat different. Also he was still unknown at that time, and now he bears an already celebrated name and has, at least in Germany, decided the public opinion in his favour. I rejoice that he is experiencing so much distinction in Vienna, but you may be sure that were he to be here in order to hear one of his operas, he would be honoured in the same way. Recently at the performance of Tannhäuser with Schnorr and Johanna, the applause was so intense and unaccustomed, for here, that it seemed intended not so much for the excellent actors as for the creator of the work, and really might well also have been a demonstration against Paris.
With us things do not go entirely as we wish. Our youngest daughter has been suffering for ten days with a nervous fever and was very ill. Last night, however, was somewhat better, and so I hope that the illness will be on the wane. Also the winter was nothing special. The four youngest children first had the measles and then scarlatina. Yet with God's help everything has passed by fortunately. My poor wife has surely had much anxiety and strain thereby. With me everything goes quite well with the exception of some fatigue resulting from very lively professional activity. It was a great pleasure for us to have my brother from Havre visit us with his whole family. He himself has of course returned, but he has left wife and children behind for the summer. In the fall he will fetch them again.
As concerns your own health, esteemed friend, I regret so much hearing nothing gratifying. Certainly it was to be expected that the great agitation to which you were exposed incessantly, especially, however, in Paris recently, must have been very bad for you. Unfortunately your letter confirms this apprehension. What I urgently do wish, therefore, is that you may soon have peace, for only peace is capable of affording any relief to you. Therefore leave the unquiet Paris life as soon as possible and seek out the calm of a German watering-resort. Since Soden agreed so well with you last year, I advise you to make use of this again. But after the end of the "cure" do come for some time to Dresden, where we would receive you with pleasure.
I beg you to greet Richard for me most heartily. I hope the time is no longer far off when I shall see him too. My family, my wife and children, my sister-in-law (my mother-in-law is taking a bath), each one greets you most cordially. With the hope of seeing you soon again, I am
Your sincerely devoted friend,
Dr. Pusinelli
Source: The Letters of Richard Wagner to Anton Pusinelli, trans. and ed. Elbert Lenrow (Alfred A. Knopf, 1932), No. 88