Lohengrin will not be performed until Wednesday, Frau Ortrud having met with a slight accident. I really am glad of this delay, for the excitement of the performance would have followed too close upon the state of emotion into which the rehearsal plunged me. [...] I sat there quite still all the time, while one tear after another ran down my cheek. The dear people came quietly and embraced me. At the close, the orchestra and chorus broke into loud cheers. You may imagine how I thanked them! But no doubt I delighted good Kapellmeister Esser most of all, for the poor fellow had been in intense anxiety beforehand as to whether I should be satisfied or want a number of things altered. So he stood there without a word, as dumb as a post, while I told him that when one got as a gift from heaven such a performance as this, one lost all idea of criticising in any way. [...] Opera here is heavenly—a mass of glorious voices, each more lovely than the other—choir—orchestra overpoweringly beautiful! Ander—the tenor—utterly perfect; his voice not merely adequate but, where necessary, full of brilliant force, a thoroughly conscious artist, excellent in delivery and action, full of his subject, all life and fire. Then Mme. Dustmann, with a heavenly, soulful voice, capable of anything, lightly and softly adaptable in every way, has admirable dramatic expression. She brings out every nuance so naturally and clearly, so movingly and truly, that I had nothing whatever to tell her. With these two—no doubt of Tristan and Isolde!—
[...] To-day—just this minute—I have been presented to Count Lanckoronski, the Court Intendant of the Imperial Theatre. I had to say the most flattering things to him (with a good conscience), as he is said to take an interest in every little detail of the theatre, while I for my part had the advantage with him of having been enthusiastically received here as a composer. So I think we parted quite excellent friends. He has offered me his theatre for every one of my operas, and I am told he does not jest, but means what he says literally and keeps his word.—Anyhow, I now cut a comic figure in my own eyes with my laborious model performance at Karlsruhe, for which I have first to collect all my material, and I believe I ought to lay hold here, where I have everything, everything needed all ready to my hand, with an enthusiastic and enormous public at my back into the bargain. [...]
[...] I am sorry to say I am over-besieged here, and regularly feel rather overdone. Tausig and Cornelius are here, too! That confounded youngster, again, amuses me very much. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 490