[...] This has been an odd time for me as I haven't seen a soul for three weeks except the doctor and the maid-servant. Just once Prince Dolgoruki called on me and once Winterberger, and I must confess I found their visits overlong and was glad when they left. Really I can dispense altogether with society and least of all do I want to be entertained. My chief need is health and undisturbed peace of mind to enable me to work, for it is my work alone that really uplifts me and keeps me going. [...] I have not much more to say about the Lohengrin project in Dresden. Only Mme. Ney must have changed in appearance inconceivably for the better if I am to believe your description. [...] She is an excellent singer, but dramatic expression, essential soul, she has not. I simply cannot conceive of her as Elsa—perhaps as Ortrud. But don't push this opera so hard in Dresden. In the first place it will certainly bring me no profit there, and in the second place it still sickens me to think that in the very place where I wanted to produce it first it is to be pulled to pieces by a conductor so exquisitely brainless as Krebs. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 381