My very best Minel,
Best thanks for your dear letters. Your quite unwonted writing-fit is proof to me what heartfelt love can bring to pass. For my part, I finished my instrumentation also yesterday, and to-day at least may take a rest from writing! Last Tuesday I rehearsed the vocal part of my new composition for the first time: already it went better than I expected; immediately it had been sung through once, a general outburst of enthusiasm among the 200 singers present found vent in prolonged applause. We rehearse in a large hall in the Brühl Garden, so several of us went off to the restaurant to take a little something after the rehearsal; upon my entry I was greeted by the Peace chorus from Rienzi, performed by the band: when it was over, the whole audience applauded quite alarmingly; then I learnt that it had just been played a third time by desire. Directly after, they played the overture to Rienzi again, now hackneyed every day, and from all sides there went up the same hurrah. Hartung afterwards told me, he had got up this overture to his own misfortune, for it killed his people through continually being asked for; thus it had just been redemanded for the third time. —
I shan't go out at all to-day, but take a rest; for I'm quite knocked up and my nerves are very agitated, in spite of my looking so stout and fat as you are always told. But that comes of this respectable life, you see, of no-excess, of going "to bed at 10, often in fact as early as half-past 9." — At any rate my constitution must be fairly tough now, or I couldn't keep going with my nerves in this excited state; even when I'm quite done up through some over-exertion, precisely through my sound constitution I rapidly recover. —
The Cassel operatic regisseur has been here; he told me a lot, and had never done impressing on me what it meant for my Holländer to have been received still more warmly on its second performance, since the Cassel public was fully 5 times colder than the Dresden, for instance. Spohr, too, has written me again very cordially, indeed affectionately, and informed me of the fresh success. — Lüttichau is taking Cassel en route, and arrives here the 5th. — Enough of myself for to-day; now for you! At yesterday's rehearsal a singer brought me compliments from Dr. Ullrich, who sent word you were getting on very well. Exactly what you had written me yourself. See, that delights me more than anything! —
It likewise is a great delight to me that you mean to arrive by the 4th, and suits me in every respect; though in no event could you have heard the general rehearsal before the 6th, at 8 in the morning. — I hope to be able to come and meet you, and am looking forward as a god to finding you quite well again! — I have no anxiety about my leave, as I fancy Lüttichau will now begin to shew some true consideration for me. — That's my opinion, and if at last we have really good weather into the bargain, I think we may enjoy ourselves nicely for once! —
All your orders shall be obeyed, and I've forwarded the letter to Lotte. — But it has just struck 9, and it's high time this letter went off to the post, if it's to catch it too. God preserve you, and keep you in health! Give my best regards to all, and hold me dear until we meet again! Perhaps I shall be writing once again, before; for certain, I am always thinking of you! Farewell, my good Wife,
Thy Richard.
Source: Richard to Minna Wagner: Letters to His First Wife, trans. William Ashton Ellis, Vol. 1 (H. Grevel & Co., 1909), No. 10