[...] As I have [...] so much to do now with this early opus [Tannhäuser], I cannot bring myself to let palpable weaknesses stand. On a similar occasion, I think I did The Flying Dutchman no harm by adding a new close, and I now intend to revise the Venusberg scene. I recognise the weakness in the choregraphic first scene, and not less in the stiffness of the part of Venus. Accordingly, I shall write entirely new, much more richly developed music for Scene I. (call it ballet), revise, and more particularly amplify, the Venus rôle very considerably, retaining the best motifs, to which end I have composed some new verses for the close of the scene. I hope to excite greater interest in Venus and to lead up to Tannhäuser's final invocation of Mary in a way to make for a true understanding of the anguish of soul which brings him [...]
The reason why I, for my part (having the sole right to be dissatisfied), am letting a French translation suffice instead of the German original, is that I am giving the Paris performance in honour of the first and only Prince [Napoleon] who has given me the chance of hearing one of my operas these eleven years, and that in spite of Meyerbeer and all his embattled hosts of Jewry. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 470