[...] Thank you for your vote as touching Scaria. His demands—even his demand to be paid in advance and at once, might ultimately have been met, but what can we have in common with a man who chooses to stand entirely outside the fellowship to which alone the success of my enterprise will be due? It was impossible to think of having him amongst us, particularly side by side with my Berliners, whose noble disinterestedness is beyond all praise. Consequently—I have made up my mind to forgo his co-operation.—You recommend Fricke? And that brings me to my other point.
If Fricke is so good, why did not you—and still more Niemann—urge his claim more definitely before? And that leads me to the Tristan business. Up to now Eckert is the only one who has given me any news of it, but I have not been able to make much of what he tells me. I should very much like to know if anything serious is likely to come of it. If so, if you believe it is so, this Berlin Tristan must now become an exceedingly important—and anxious—concern of mine. It is likely enough that the matter is serious. Since the first performances in Munich eleven years ago, Tristan has become a legend. The performance in Weimar (with the Vogls) may well have made the legend still more incredible. [...] Jauner told me that Niemann declared he did not wish to sing Tristan after they had both witnessed a performance in Munich last summer, and really, with such a model before him, I cannot blame him. If they are serious about it in Berlin I should feel very deeply interested. I am very concerned that this performance should not be a mere curiosity but a perfect, an unexceptionable production.
Frankly, now, between ourselves, how is it with Niemann? I hear—from Eckert chiefly—that he is extraordinarily well and in good voice. Remarkable man as he is, I am willing to believe this. But how about his good will and the spirit he brings to the job?—
Have you really any serious difficulties with the rôle of Mark—on account of its somewhat low pitch? Are you discontented with it, or do you regard this most pathetic and significant part as I do and rejoice to have undertaken it? I would not for the world have anything carried through here under constraint and with shoulder-shruggings. If, at the worst, you should think Fricke more suitable (inconceivable to me!), or should you even prefer Kurwenal, tell me. Only not this lack of will and lack of confidence! Surely you understand me? Early in March I shall come to Berlin. If everyone and everything is not exceedingly well disposed, then—!!! [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 684