[...] Since leaving Bayreuth I have heard nothing from you beyond the announcement that the deficit is proving more and more serious and that you want me to suggest some means of meeting it. The first thing to be done seemed to me to be to make application to those who have supported my enterprise hitherto. I drew up a letter and sent it off to you (about the 8th or 10th of October) with a request that you would enclose the same with your report to our patrons. At the same time, however, I wrote very fully to the King of Bavaria, sketching out a plan whereby the theatre with all its accessories should become the property of the State under the management of the magistracy of Bayreuth on condition that the whole burden of debt resting upon it were taken over by this authority. I have received no reply to this proposition as yet, but I do not doubt the King's very good intentions and imagine that he may, nevertheless, experience some difficulty in discovering the right way to meet my wishes.
Although I am awaiting replies in all quarters, our friend Heckel has written of his great regret that I have personally to ask for contributions to cover the deficit, adding that in his opinion this should have been my friends' affair. Accordingly he has himself broached the subject to our friends on the committee of management. I replied that the feelings which actuated him appeared to me very right, and that I should indeed be very pleased if my friends would take the matter in hand. As regards his proposal for making good the deficit by giving a fourth (extra) performance with increased charges, I could only express the doubt as to whether payments could be deferred long enough to allow of this.
I am firmly convinced that there are people who could and would very gladly subscribe the sum we need, but I do not know the man of sufficient means to take a lead in this matter. [...]
[...] Whatever happens, however, it seems to me too late to think with confidence of a repetition of the Dramatic Festival next summer, or indeed at all. I was able to face all this financial confusion and trouble to attain my goal once and show the world the true meaning of my work, but to go on in this condition, to be for ever at the mercy of chance, of the ills, for example, consequent on a libellous press, to be exposed to financial anxieties which I do not deserve since I seek no pecuniary gains—all this I must refuse to submit to for the future. Very considerable defects in the performance of my work have been due solely to financial uncertainty and the resultant doubts of those responsible as to whether performance would actually take place at the date fixed. We ought by now to have command of funds for improvements and renovations. Furthermore, I should not care to ask certain artistes in my personnel, who have proved "difficult," to co-operate again without promising them a very considerable honorarium, and to do so it would be necessary, at the very least, to have made good the deficit on this year's production. And to ask my singers and musicians to assist at a fourth (extra) performance to this end might very well scare them off, for it looks like tempting Providence to count even on a repetition of the fortunate conditions which before made it possible to give three uninterrupted performances in succession and within so short a space of time.
Therefore it seems to me that I am forced to decide to wait and see whether anything can be done timely to raise money to cover the deficit. If this has not been done by January 1st, the repetition of the Dramatic Festival next year will have to be dropped, and it will remain to be seen then whether inquiries are made and help afforded in the proper quarters.
[...] I must not [...] lose sight of the possibility that we may never repeat the performance of the Dramatic Festival; this would certainly be the case if the deficit were not covered in time by contributions and it became impossible to suspend payment any longer. There will be nothing for it then but to get the undertaking declared bankrupt and hand over the assets to the creditors, after informing our patrons. We should have to give the King of Bavaria what belongs to him, and offer the remaining valuables to the highest bidder to pay the other debts. [...]
[...] I have shown what I can do, and now feel that I have a right—as indeed I am compelled—to close my public career as an artist. My sole remaining duty is to care diligently for my own and my family's welfare, hitherto sacrificed to that career. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 692