[...] I send you herewith the promised directions for the performance of Lohengrin. Forgive me that they come so late—I learned only recently that you have acquiesced so kindly and with such readiness in my wish to have this opera produced. When some day we meet again I shall have much to tell you. For the present, this much only of my recent past, that my contemplated journey to Greece has come to nothing; there were too many impediments. I could not overcome them all, but indeed I should have preferred to leave the world altogether. [...]
Now that I find that you want to produce Lohengrin as early as August 28th, I am making haste so as not to be behindhand with my dispatches, at least from now on. [...]
In the first place I have expressed my mind in the enclosed on scene and décor. You will be greatly amused by the sketches I have made for this purpose. I reckon them among the most successful creations of my genius. Where technique has failed me a little you must be satisfied with the good intention, which will be plain from the literary explanations annexed. [...]
Now, first and foremost, I have an urgent plea to make to you. Give the opera as it is, cut nothing! I will myself suggest one single omission and even insist that it shall be left out [...] that is, the second part of Lohengrin's narrative in the big closing scene of the third act. That is to say, after Lohengrin's words "Sein Ritter ich bin Lohengrin genannt" (on F) ["His knight am I, and Lohengrin my name"], an entire passage of fifty-six bars is to be omitted; "Wo ihr mit Gott mich alle landen saht" (on F) ["Where you all saw me land, by God's will"]—"nannt" therefore instead of "saht." I have gone over the whole thing frequently myself and come to the conclusion that this second part of the narrative is certain to have a chilling effect. This passage therefore should at once be omitted from the libretti. [...] Tell me [...] could we possibly contrive that I should be present incognito at the first performance at Weimar? This is a desperate question, particularly as I am no longer [...] indifferent as to whether or no I inhabit a Royal Saxon jail. Now just listen! I have conceived a great respect for the Grand Duchess. Might not this lady—to whom I impute true nobility—be inclined at your suggestion to play an ingenious prank, snap her fingers at the police of all Germany and get me a safe-conduct—be it under an assumed name—from Switzerland to Weimar and back to Zurich? I solemnly promise stoically to maintain my incognito, to lie perdu in Weimar only for a very short time in any case, to travel back afterwards at once and direct, and to see that the most absolute secrecy is preserved abroad. Or might it be more possible to do it through the Duke of Coburg? Much that I hear of him pleases me greatly. [...] I am just on the point of quashing some most idiotic rumours which have got abroad about me by going back to Zurich. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 1, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 179