[...] I note with regret that things are going very awkwardly. I have been unable to send you any instalments till to-day. I have escaped here from the ill-health and activities of all kinds which kept me from work in Munich, and I shall persevere now until The Mastersingers is complete. [...]
October is decided on for the first performance. As soon as you have the score ready you will, of course, send it to all the theatres. I do not wish to withhold it from any one of them.—I may say also for your comfort that the second act is somewhat less voluminous than the first, but, after all, it is a comic opera, containing numerous allegros and, consequently, many notes! [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 625