(on which day 11 years ago I too was in Berlin!).
[...] The first sign of the idleness to which I have abandoned myself since finishing the score of The Twilight of the Gods, shall be this letter to you, written without any business occasion and in sheer "gaieté de cœur" (as the Latins say).
We have pleasant memories of your last stay with us. I dread the coming year, when everything will be in such dead earnest. I realise that there are still many lacunæ to be filled up in our "ideal" personnel and that it is my duty in the circumstances to set out personally as voyager of discovery or verification. In the first place I must get a Sieglinde for my formidable Siegmund. But where? Cannot you help me? (Could we not kill Herr Mallinger, for instance?) [...]
I shall probably only visit Vienna (and Budapest) for business purposes, as I found I was obliged to commission certain work at the theatre and to undertake to raise 15,000 gulden for it, a sum which I hope to accumulate (there!) in concert takings. [...]
[...] Be good and sing Lohengrin and all the other nonsense and help on the work on "Wahnfried." [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 670