[...] Before then [the Choral Festival], I should like to finish another piece of work which I do not want to have on my hands any longer, that is the adaptation of Rienzi for a single evening. I have begun on it already and hope to complete it in a few days. In case, as I hope, I get my leave, I should like to have all that behind me and to devote all my attention to my new opera [Tannhäuser]. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 1, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 94