Dear Friend Heckel!
Many thanks! Much trouble and vexation—I gladly await Herr v. Reichenberg, but my time is short, which brings me to ask you to arrange the affairs with Herr Knapp. Since the conductors are behaving so badly, I have grown tired of the haggling and bargaining, and moreover Herr Knapp really interests me. Let him dispose of his time according to the order of the rehearsals. I need him only for the Rheingold, and, provided he will sing one of the men in the Götterdämmerung, the other numbers he can use for concert work, etc. Moreover, I should not care to make payments to the Mannheim Pension Fund during the time that he is lying here idle.
In regard to Unger I am rather uncertain just at present. You know that!
I am expecting news which will result in my seeing Tristan in Munich April 5th at the latest; if Frau Vogl fulfils my expectations and I am able to secure her for Sieglinde, this will undoubtedly depend upon my taking her husband also. I can give him no other role than that of Loge. For this reason I do not see at present what I could do with Unger, whom I know so little. He, however, has left an impression which decides me in any case to become better acquainted with him. He must therefore spend some time in my neighbourhood, purely for the cause and in order to profit by my instructions. I cannot, however, make any compensation to him for his sojourn here.
Now do see what is to be done! In the event that Frau Vogl definitely displeases me, Unger would then serve for Loge.
I have passed through much lately and am also not at all well.
But in the end everything must succeed.
Cordial greetings from
Your faithful
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. 72