[...] I humbly desire Your Excellency graciously to hear the petition which I have to make with reference to an opera of my own composition for which I seek the honour of a first performance at the Royal Court Theatre of Berlin. It is a small opera entitled The Flying Dutchman, not designed to occupy a whole evening but rather to be given with a short ballet or little play. I am arranging to have the libretto of the same dispatched to Your Excellency within a few days and no asseverations on my part are necessary to assure Your Excellency how happy I should think myself if both the idea and the execution of this work should seem worthy of Your Excellency's approbation.
For the rest I cannot but be convinced that my name as a composer is still unknown to Your Excellency and I therefore think it meet in this connection to refer Your Excellency to Herr Meyerbeer who, so far as I know, is at present staying in Berlin and to whom I have the inestimable good fortune of being known personally. I flatter myself that Herr Meyerbeer will not hesitate to give Your Excellency a favourable account of me. Should Your Excellency be able to decide to grant me the honour I seek for this opera, I would humbly desire Your Excellency to fix the performance of the same for the late autumn of this year, to the end that I may be able to send in the fully completed score at the close of this summer. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 1, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 59