[...] So now you want another copy of my Autobiography to use for an article on me. What am I to say to that? [...] I have it not and cannot get hold of it here. If you really want to look over it, you could probably get a copy more easily in Weimar if I tell you exactly where it is to be found—that is, in the Zeitung für die elegante Welt in the year 1843. [...] But I can scarcely think you will find much in it, except confirmation of the fact that I too have erred much in my artistic career, not being (like Mendelssohn) one of the chosen of God into whose mouth the only true infallible "solid" bread of art falls as manna from Heaven and who can therefore say "I have never gone astray!" [...] At the time when I composed that autobiography at Laube's desire I had, it is true, written my Flying Dutchman and sketched out the poem of Tannhäuser, but it was only through the completed Tannhäuser and Lohengrin that I became perfectly clear about the direction in which unconscious instinct had been driving me. I must myself take occasion later to explain the process of development therein perceived, when I publish my Operatic Poems. [...]
You will by now have received my little pamphlet A Theatre in Zurich. Much of it, yes most of it, will be beside the point for you, as conditions here are so different from those in Weimar. But the little paper will probably make pretty clear to you my ideas as to the nature and efficacy of an "original theatre." [...]
[...] Through you, you in Weimar are already on the right road. If originality of achievement is increasingly your conscious principle in espousing this way, if, again, this principle is proclaimed as a principle, and if the consciousness of this wins you helpers in increasing numbers, you will very soon see how the thing you wish for may gradually be realised. I was uncommonly pleased with Raff's opera [King Alfred]—so far, so good—but now to proceed and, to speak straight out, you must do your part. Write an opera for Weimar, I implore you. Write it just to suit the forces you have there, and which ought to be increased, ennobled and broadened through your work. Do not give up your plans for Die Welschen on my account [...], but stick to what is nearest you, too, your present homeland. [...]
One thing more. Do something thorough to give your theatrical company a sound education. Nowhere will you find the artists you want unless you create them for yourself. See to it that your singers, as the next most important thing, are good actors. Who cannot speak and declaim well, how shall he be able to sing? [...]
[...] The wild confusion of all genres and styles is the horrible thing which deprives our performers of any kind of artistic consciousness. Gluck to-day, Donizetti to-morrow, Weber to-day, Rossini or Auber to-morrow, serious to-day, frivolous to-morrow—what is the result? That the company can give neither Gluck nor Donizetti, neither the grave nor the gay. What a terrible business these translations are! People generally accustom themselves to absolute meaninglessness in the dramatic side of their performance. Well then, see that the translated libretti are rationally handled. Most important of all, accustom the singers to think of their performance as first and foremost a dramatic one; then they will solve the lyrical problems for themselves. The most suitable works to this end are those of the old French school, because in them it is very easy to find a comprehensible dramatic intention. How is a company which cannot present Cherubini's Water Carrier or Méhul's Joseph in a good and effective manner to be educated up to the (comparatively) enormous difficulties, for example, of an opera of mine?—The main thing is always—new works, and works, too, composed with an eye to our personnel and definitely for this theatre.—[...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 1, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 203