[...] I forgot to write to you about G[ustav] S[chmidt's] opera. I was there. He gave it for his benefit night. It is the most miserable, vulgar piece of bungled work I have come across up to now. Yet he seems to know very well how to get himself written up in the newspapers. My child, regarded in the cold light of day, there is little enough to be said for that good man. The Frankforters knew very well what they were doing when they got rid of him. He is fit for no decent theatre and shows himself unworthy all round. The only reason that he took up my operas some time ago in Frankfort, was that Schindelmeisser (eccentric, but a not unintelligent fellow) had anticipated him with great success in Wiesbaden. [...]
Actually, I have done none of my new opera as yet except—the overture, but that has turned out very well indeed, and may very likely put all my other overtures in the shade. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 527