[...] After my death, those who survey my life's vicissitudes will be amazed that a creative artist like myself, whose works were warmly received in many quarters during his lifetime, could nevertheless not get sufficient support from his contemporaries even to enable him to create. I have always imagined that a number of wealthy art patrons would unite for this purpose. But suggestions like this were never taken up; a few princes were willing to take me on as "kapellmeister," but not in my own character as I am. Since my return to Germany all my prospects have finally vanished. When I set out for Russia last winter I was at my last ebb. I there made enough to start afresh, to build up my ruined life on a new basis by establishing a hearth and home in which to pursue my art.—You know what a difficult task that was. Intolerable domestic misery, lasting through years, finally forced me to live apart from my wife. I have to provide her with a suitable competence and a house of her own, and I do so with the earnest desire that she should lack for nothing. An exaggerated account of my Russian "fortune" spread abroad, and those who had claims on me (and for long periods of my life I was obliged to enter into all kinds of liabilities) began to press me, often in very peremptory fashion. "Settling down quietly" meant, for me, bringing nothing but troubles upon my head. The desire and need for a sufficient competence again became really urgent. The fate of Tristan, which had to be definitely abandoned only because of the certificated incapacity of the soprano here to carry through the leading female rôle, rent the last strand of the hope which still attached me to the theatre.—
I then began to ask myself—and you too—why I had not remained with you in St. Petersburg.—But now that I am here again and settled, though at great cost, actual emigration to St. Petersburg seems impracticable, even if I could find suitable employment there. Could I not, however, contract to visit St. Petersburg for a few months each year? The truth is that even in St. Petersburg I can do nothing for art save by means of exceptional performances. The only opportunity for these is in Lent. Besides, while I am a dramatist, and as such could have no part in the operatic life of St. Petersburg as constituted at present, I am at the same time a virtuoso in another sense, that is an operatic conductor, and in this rôle I can offer "personal" achievements which the world at large recognises and values, although my "works" really exist only for the few. If the management of the Imperial Theatre would engage me for a period of a few years, say five, to conduct a series of big concerts in Lent, to give a series of the best things perfectly, I should be able to promise the St. Petersburg musical world the following advantages!—The St. Petersburg orchestra would become the first in the world; the ordinary type of concert, which has hitherto filled the pockets of speculative concert-promoters during Lent, would cease; instead, the general taste in music would be raised to a critical level which would make it possible to produce later on something noble, and, I hope, even in a national sense important, in operatic as well as in concert music. Of course I am presupposing that it is possible to get it clear that the honour of art is the sole determining factor in the invitation extended to me. My engagement once understood in this light, I should have to consider remuneration, and this would have to be calculated not on what I brought to the management in money but in honour. For in this engagement I should hope for the advantage of being raised above the necessity of looking elsewhere for funds, at least for the period of years covered by the agreement. I estimate that I should require for this purpose a yearly salary of five to six thousand roubles. You will admit that I have conceived a high opinion of Russia when I make a proposition like this, for it would be senseless did I not count on being met by a high sense of honour and a very [sympathetic spirit]. [...] I attach great importance to these schemes for the further reason that I look to the speedy conclusion of some such engagement as my only hope of assistance in present difficulties. My poor Mastersingers!!
I have just got to the point of feeling a genuine craving for work returning. After dreadful interruptions I am about to devote myself exclusively to satisfying this craving, when I am besieged by cares again, cares which with my advancing years have an increasingly dispiriting effect on me!
If I could only finish my Mastersingers now! So I sigh from my inmost soul! This work has an extraordinary attraction for me; in it there appears for the first time an element of cheerfulness, a delight in gay and graceful detail, quite absent in my earlier passionate [operas]. I believe that undisturbed work upon this opera would be my salvation, would make me a new and happy man [...] This work should lead me through the portals of mild resignation into a new and final stage of my career in which I might hope for comfort and healing for the pains and sorrows of my past life. [...] Do something to keep me at work on my Mastersingers, so that I may finish it undisturbed! [...]
But what can you do? Lay the poor Mastersingers at the feet of our dear Grand Duchess, entreat her on my behalf for quiet and freedom from care at this intensely critical time, a moment which must actually decide whether my Hans Sachs is to live or not!! How to accomplish this? Ah, if I only knew! You would not believe how forsaken I am, how strange and alone I am among all the people here! [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 561