Best Mutz,
It is getting difficult for me to bring off a letter to you to-day. People have been coming to me since 8 in the morning, and it still goes on; moreover I have really much run down. Last night was something positively incredible! And everybody assures me that such a thing had never been experienced with this public: it was an ovation the like of which had probably never been offered to any composer before. I had a box in the 2nd tier, to get a thorough good hearing and view of the performance. Naturally I was observed at once, and after the prelude, which was rendered in heavenly fashion, the whole audience turned towards my box with a never-ceasing tempest of applause, so that I was obliged to stand up 5 times over and make bows without end. Precisely the same thing took place after the principal pieces in every act; after the close of each act, however, I had to appear on the stage, always thrice, and at the final close as many as 5 times. But what was most striking, was the incredible unanimity of the whole audience: a shout of delight as from 1000 trombones, and of a duration I absolutely couldn't comprehend, so that I feared they all must burst. Consequently I had also to say a few words at the end, which naturally came straight from my heart, and were received with cheers beyond description. The Director — an extremely good-natured Italian — turned quite pale: he had never witnessed such a thing, he said. — I can believe him! Moreover, I don't mean to evoke it again. Saturday we're to have the Flying Dutchman, which is said to be very well given: in any case I intend to be supposed to have departed, and to attend the performance in hiding; for such a thing mustn't, and shan't be repeated.
Good God, how I should have liked you to be present this time; it would have made you also forget your disgusting Parisian experiences. But something similar is surely in reserve for you as well! Rejoice that it has at least occurred to me for once; that must be your indemnification for the present. — Under such impressions as mine here, you may easily imagine that your account of the fresh annoyance you have undergone has affected me very disagreeably. Luckily, nothing much depends on our friendly relations with X, and so far as I remember, we have good reason to disclaim in toto whatever is alleged to have been said, and to let the whole bother alone. — Please don't take it at all to heart. —
I shall write you again in a day or two, with something more definite about the departure and the next step to take. For the present I'm still entirely absorbed with the reception I have had in Vienna; I am so full of the affection shewn me, and the splendid artistic means here, that I must re-focus my wits a little first on what I propose for the future. Meanwhile I will merely repeat that I firmly abide by the plan of our settling at Carlsruhe: everything shall be made certain ere the end of the month. —
Give my best remembrances to Liszt. Was I really not destined to meet him in Paris, then? How strange! — Greet our friends and the animals, about whom I'm telling many tales here — among others to the Laubes, with whom I've dined, and who send you kind regards. They have 5 dogs. —
So, good courage, dear Minna! Forget your momentary vexation in the lovely amends now prepared for your husband.
Farewell and be good to me!
Thy Richard.
I must really keep steady: they're devising honours and ovations for me here on every side. The glorious band is to give me a banquet! The big University choral society wants to serenade me solemnly after the Holländer, and so on. — Messrs Aulic Councillors, too, are laying their heads together for what's to be done with me. — There's so much heartiness about it all, that I can't well decline anything! —
Source: Richard to Minna Wagner: Letters to His First Wife, trans. William Ashton Ellis, Vol. 2 (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1909), No. 206