Esteemed Sir!
I permit myself to inquire if you would be favourably inclined to undertake the designing of the costumes, as well as the superintendence of the execution of the same, for the projected Festival performance of my four-part Stage Festival Play, the Ring of the Nibelung, in the summer of 1876.
For your preliminary information as to the character of your task, I am sending you a copy of the dramatic text as well as several brochures referring to the execution of the same. You will recognise at once that it is the difficulties which have arisen in connection with the matter which have determined me upon looking about for an unusually experienced and excellent artist in this particular province.
I believe I am justified in regarding the task as a fertile field and one which offers great possibilities for an inventive mind. For, to get at the gist of the matter, I require nothing less than a characteristic painting executed in single figures, which shall present with striking vivacity individual events from each and every episode of this far-distant culture epoch. You will soon find that the picture which has been accepted as the authoritative characterisation of the figures in the mediaeval Nibelung Epic, according to the precedent set by Cornelius, Schnorr, and others, must here be left quite out of the question. On the other hand, if one has given attention of late to the characterisations from the specific Northern mythology, it will have become apparent how an effort was being made to avoid difficulty by using a modification of the classic antique. Intimations of the Roman writers, who came in touch with the Germanic peoples, as to the costumes of these people, do not seem to have received the attention they merit.
According to my opinion, any artist who wished to appropriate the sketches I gave him and make them his own, would find a unique field, not only for intelligent compilation, but for his inventive fancy as well; and I could wish for nothing more than that you, highly esteemed sir, should assume this task.
Begging you to let me know your inclination in the matter, I do myself the honour of sending you greetings of especial respect as
Your humble servant,
Richard Wagner.
Source: The Story of Bayreuth as Told in the Bayreuth Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Caroline V. Kerr (Small, Maynard and Company, 1912), No. 65