You will be wondering that you have received no answer from me as yet to your two last letters. I wrote you one immediately with an enclosure for F. Mendelssohn-Bartholdy and had actually got some oiled linen so as to send him a big parcel of compositions through you (you shall have the letter, already sealed, when next you are here), but I changed my mind entirely and sent you nothing, for I am now taking leave, once and for all, of the concert-hall. I may perhaps even not take your advice that I should send a good overture to Leipzig. I don't want to be anyone's hanger-on, and your reports of Mendelssohn have finally dissuaded me. Adieu, ye solid splendours, I give myself up to the tinsel of the stage! I am now a composer of operas only, and am casting myself, body and soul and all my hopes, into my opera [Das Liebesverbot], at which I am hard at work now. The practice of this art absorbs me now entirely, and during the short time I have been back here I have been well rewarded therefor. I am now entirely responsible for the opera here and have just luckily discovered and brought to light a couple of young talents who will let the theatrical world hear of them some time. Who would have thought of Minna's sister [Amalie Planer], lost in obscurity at Braunschweig? I engaged the girl for her beautiful alto voice and I have now rehearsed her in Romeo. Few beginners have made such a sensation as she—people went absolutely mad over her. The opera had to be repeated at once to a house full to bursting, and tears were as plentiful as at a performance by Devrient. I have likewise hunted out a little tenor called Schreiber and am training him to the great satisfaction of the public. That's something to rejoice about! And it's all my work! I am becoming vain as a conductor, too, you see! I am producing my operas promptly and to time. We are rehearsing new operas—Jessonda (quite new here!)—Norma, Lestocq ought to follow upon each other merrily. That is where our unexampled business method comes in: the salaries are paid exactly and punctually. Everything is going well—well! And I delight in being absolute ruler of the opera! Perhaps I shall do as well as Mendelssohn—but I am only in Magdeburg and he is in Leipzig—that's the difference. However, I haven't finished yet! I feel full of vigour! I am not going to bother about Leipzig—I am thinking of attempting something quite different, Berlin, in fact, where I contemplate getting my Liebesverbot first produced. More of this anon, but I may just say that I am not hankering in the least after you and your honours.
The 27th.
I was interrupted yesterday. It is noticeable in your last letter that you tend to think our modern ideas need revising. The modern position as regards love, etc., no longer meets with your approval, perhaps never has done. My present bourgeois post presses a little heavily on me, too, and I could almost be weak enough to submit again to all sorts of superannuated conceptions, but that my unshakable convictions about the present position of art have a most stimulating effect on my social views. So with my music—I shall never, never acclaim our Germanism again, and your Leipzig with all its classic gloire can never drag me back to it. We have stuffed our stomachs with too much rotten matter. It seemed to me very opportune that I should at this moment be busy about a German work again. I am rehearsing Jessonda, and how I shy away again from reactionary ideas! The opera fills me once more with utter disgust; the soft Bellini is a veritable Hercules compared with this great, lengthy, pedantic, sentimental Spohr. A little while ago it occurred to me to compose an overture to Romeo and Juliet. I was thinking out a rough plan when—would you believe it?—Bellini's stale, insipid overture with its battlefield of a crescendo, turned up of itself in my sketch!
Fräulein Haas is very ill. Don't bother your head about Minna—I am leaving it all to Fate. She loves me and her love is worth very much to me now. She is the pivot of my life, and gives it consistency and warmth. I cannot relinquish her. I only know this, dear Theodore, that you know nothing at all of the sweetness of such a connection. There is nothing low, unworthy or enervating about it. Our Epicureanism is pure and strong—it is not a vulgar amour. We love each other and trust each other and leave the rest to Fate. You, of course, know nothing of this and truly only with an actress could one live in such a relationship. This disregard of the ideas of conventional society can only exist where the whole basis of life is imaginative freedom and poetic licence. I have got a nice friendly sitting-room and a splendid grand piano which I got cheap, and with these all would be well if I had not got to live within such horribly strict limits. I don't mean to complain about it, but when I reflect that all this is insufficient to atone for the immediate past, I could rage! You can imagine how penuriously I live when I have to pay off 30 thalers a month—that is really bitter. And now just listen; since you once settled to give me a certain sum, don't leave me in the lurch this first of the month. I reckon on you—else I'm bankrupt—and listen again—if it should be a little more than before I should certainly not complain—you may believe me! Now, we'll see what comes of it—it can't be too much! What a life I'm leading! No, I'm extremely respectable and am getting a heavenly reputation. There are rubs here and there of course, but I'm willing to put up with them if I can make something by it. Haven't I become nice and tame?—and I'm a good conductor, too—deuce take me if I don't flatter myself a little on that head. If I can only get a bit of a name with my opera I shall do well enough. Now write to me and don't take things ill—you know I'm an ass! [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 1, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 26