[...] What you have been to me, I have recently attempted to make known publicly—keeping the tone as sober as possible just because it was for the public—confining myself strictly to the bare facts of your relations with me, to present the picture of such a friendship as people nowadays, perhaps, can scarcely conceive. I did this [...] in a Communication to my Friends with which I prefaced the publication of my Three Poems. [...] The timidity of the good Messrs. Härtel, the intending publishers of this edition, has now taken alarm at certain passages in this "Foreword" wherein I had absolutely no demonstrative intention and which I could just as well have expressed differently, with the result that the appearance of the book is to be greatly retarded, a circumstance which I have at present special reasons for feeling very annoyed about. [...] Nevertheless I feel obliged now to tell you [...] that my decision to write a new opera for Weimar has become subject to such important modifications that I can hardly let it still be counted as a decision. [...]
It was in the autumn of 1848 that I first sketched out the whole Nibelungen myth in a form henceforward to be my own poetic property. My next attempt, to dramatise the chief tragic incident in the great story for our stage, was Siegfried's Death. After long hesitation, in the autumn of 1850 I was at last upon the point of making plans to execute the drama in musical form, but was prevented from beginning chiefly by renewed recognition of the fact that it could not possibly be produced satisfactorily anywhere. To rid myself of this despairing mood I wrote my book Opera and Drama. Then last spring you made so inspiriting an impression on me with your article on Lohengrin that—for your sake—I once again readily and joyfully resumed the composition of a drama. I wrote to you of it at the time. Siegfried's Death, however, [...] was for the moment impossible. I saw that I should first have to prepare the way for it by another drama and therefore returned to a long-cherished plan of making "Young Siegfried" the subject of a poem. In this work, matters which in Siegfried's Death are partly related, partly assumed to be known, could be given in bold vivid contours by actual representation. The poem was quickly planned and finished.—[...]
Even Young Siegfried, however, is only a fragment and can never make a true and unequivocal impression as a perfect part until it is appropriately placed according to my present plan—Siegfried's Death rounding off the perfect whole. In both these dramas a great amount of relevant matter is left either to narrative—or even to the deductions of the audience. [...] But I am now deeply convinced that any work of art, including dramatic art, can only be truly effective if all that is of moment to the imaginative purpose is imparted to the senses; and now, least of all, can or may I sin against the truth as I perceive it. Therefore, to be completely understood, I must give the whole myth in all the depth and breadth of its meaning with the most absolute artistic precision. [...] Accordingly it still remains for me to prepare for representation two principal incidents in my myth, and both of these are foreshadowed in Young Siegfried—the first in Brynhilde's long narrative after her awakening [...]—the second in the scenes between Alberich and the Wanderer in the second act, and between the Wanderer and Mime in the first act.—If you look closely into the subject you will readily realise that I am impelled to choose these incidents, not only by artistic reflection but because of the splendour of the subjects and their uncommonly rich dramatic material. Think of the marvellous ill-starred love of Siegmund and Sieglinde; of Wotan and his deep mysterious connexion with that love, his estrangement from Fricka and his furious contest with himself when, for the law's sake, he decrees Siegmund's death! Then think of Brynhilde, the glorious valkyrie, who divining his inmost thought, defies the god and is punished by him. Picture all this wealth of interest (which I touch on in the scene between the Wanderer and the Wala and again—more at large—in the aforementioned narrative of Brynhilde) as the subject-matter of a drama preceding the two "Siegfrieds" and you will understand that it was no mere cold reflection but veritable inspiration which gave me this new plan of mine!
This plan comprises three dramas—(1) The Valkyrie, (2) Young Siegfried, (3) Siegfried's Death, but to make the subject complete another great play should precede them, The Theft of the Rhinegold. Its purpose is the complete representation of all the circumstances of the theft, the origin of the hoard of the Nibelungs, its seizure by Wotan, and Alberich's curse, which in Young Siegfried appear as narrative.—[...]
I cannot contemplate the separation of the component parts of this great whole without wrecking my intention from the first. All the complex drama must be represented on the stage in rapid sequence, and to make this actually possible I can only presuppose favourable conditions as follows:—My "Nibelung" dramas must be produced at a great festival which is to be instituted, perhaps, just for the purpose of this performance. It must occupy three successive days, on the eve of which the introductory prologue is to be given. Having once achieved such a performance under these conditions, I would repeat the whole at the earliest opportunity, and thereafter the individual dramas, each in itself an independent piece, might be given separately at will. [...]
Where and under what circumstances such a performance may first be made possible, need not trouble me at present, for first I have to carry out my great work and this, if I am to have any regard for my health, will occupy me three years at least.
A fortunate accession of means in the Ritter family, who are my good friends, has now made it possible for me to devote myself to creative art during this time, and indeed all my life, in peace of mind and undisturbed by material cares. [...]
But I must now confess that simultaneously with my definite change of plan I feel myself relieved of a considerable embarrassment—the embarrassment of requiring the Weimar theatre in its present condition to present Young Siegfried.
I tell you with sad sincerity that I am forced to believe that all your efforts at Weimar are fruitless. You are discovering that you have but to turn your back there and you find utter baseness flourishing most luxuriantly in the very ground in which you had exerted yourself to plant noble seed. [...] I can see nothing around you but stupidity, short-sightedness, vulgarity, the empty arrogance of ambitious courtiers who are jealous, with very good cause, of every success of genius! [...]
You know that I had decided to write a new work for you before any pecuniary agreement was made between Ziegesar and myself, but the fact that there was an agreement, and that it was offered me by our friends with obvious joy and satisfaction, made me value the occasion very highly. This I have told him openly. I should think it rather petty, small-minded and in a sense insulting were I now to return the sum already received in pursuance of this agreement, for it was certainly not given to lay an "obligation" upon me—especially as regards you and Ziegesar, but with the kindly intention of relieving me as far as possible of household worries during the composition of my opera. All the same there is another aspect to this agreement, an aspect which stands out the more strongly in that Ziegesar has a successor—though but a temporary one—in the management. As regards this successor I am, in any case, simply a man under obligation, and since I can no longer fulfil the commission I undertook, I must formally and in a monetary sense dissolve a contract which cannot stand henceforward. Fortunately enough for me, I have just been put in a position to save you all embarrassment on this point!—[...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 1, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 209