Dear Friend!
To you therefore—as always—briefly and to the point!
Knapp bores me somewhat with the absurd-sounding clause in regard to certain particular deductions. Eilers and other excellent artists, as well as the poor Unger, accept the simple compensation—Eilers, in fact, only ninety thalers a month. Eilers sings two of the chief roles for me, while I can only count on Knapp of a certainty for the Donner, and for the same role I could have Degele in Dresden for nothing. If Herr Knapp insists upon his fifteen marks (per day), I can only use him for the first week in July and the first week in August of this year, and he can then earn money elsewhere in the interim.
Honestly, this haggling annoys me! I will write personally to Unger, Fräulein König, and Fräulein von Müller. Otherwise everything is going very well, and a great effort is being made on every side to lighten the expenses for me.
Richter has just been here on his wedding journey. On the 11th of this month we start ourselves for Pesth and Vienna. Be in Vienna evening of March 1st. (Nothing but Götterdämmerung!)
Cordial greetings from house to house!
Wholly and entirely yours,
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. 70