Best of all friends,
I must reply to you at once about a few things which you ask me in your letter received yesterday, so as to let you know how matters stand. First of all, as is always the case when I have to deal with you, I must wipe a blush of shame off my face before answering you. Your wishes always concern me, and in a sense which must flatter me to the very core. You want a copy of my autobiography in order to make use of it for your pamphlet. What can I say to that? I will say nothing, but only reply that in this instance my vanity is not sufficiently great to make me carry my biography about with me. I do not possess it, and do not know where to get it. If you really want to see it, you might perhaps get it more easily from Weimar, if I told you exactly where it is to be found. It appeared in the Zeitung für die elegante Welt in the year 1843, first quarterly issue, in the month of February, I believe. But I can scarcely think that you will find much in it beyond the confirmation of the fact that I too have erred much in my artistic efforts, not being one of the elect who, like Mendelssohn, received the only true, infallible, "solid" food of art, like heavenly manna in their mouths, and who therefore were able to say, "I have never erred." We poor earthly worms can get only through error to a knowledge of truth, which therefore we love passionately, like a conquered bride, and not with the genteel approval with which we look upon a spouse selected for us beforehand by our dear parents. At that time when I wrote my autobiography at Laube's desire, I had, it is true, finished my Flying Dutchman and sketched the poem of Tannhäuser, but only through my completed Tannhäuser and my completed Lohengrin did I gain perfect clearness as to the direction in which I had been impelled by unconscious instinct.
Later on, in connection with the edition of my operatic poems, I shall take occasion to explain the process of development observed in me; certainly nothing of this can be contained in my autobiography. All the more interesting will it be for me to see that direction judged from his own observation by someone else, that is, someone like you.
Concerning my last letter to you, I must ask you to be assured that I wrote it without ostensible object. To you alone I wanted to speak on a topic started by yourself, because I did not desire to support an opinion in a general way, but to effect something real, namely the foundation of an original theatre. I therefore did not want to address the public, which qua public is quite useless for that purpose, but someone who has the intellect and, above all, the energy to view distinctly the accomplishment of such an object in given circumstances. If in the actual condition of generally accepted opinion something is to be undertaken which combats and denies that opinion as detrimental to art, this can of course only be done by individuals. We cannot expect a better general condition until the individual has become perfectly strong in itself, for the general must proceed from individuals, and for the present therefore we must be intent upon being ready ourselves and communicating with none but those nearest akin to us. In this spirit I look upon the theatre.
If we want to work for a rational condition of the theatre in all Germany, we shall never achieve anything in the slightest degree rational unless we begin at some given point, even the smallest. That point I imagine I have found where an embodiment of genius and energy is already acting in the right sense. Where else can you find such things as are done at Weimar? But through whom is this done? Through you alone! The Court may have the best possible intention; it is not an artist capable of realizing its intention, or even of conceiving a distinct intention, for in this case none but an artist can do that. This is the reason why I have applied to you alone. I had no other intention.
If you think it useful and appropriate to make a wider use of my communication, you are quite at liberty to do so. If you think that a totally independent word of mine as to the position of poetry and the fine arts, especially in reference to a given object, may not be wholly without beneficial influence on many of those concerned, above all if you think that the object in question may be furthered by it, I ask you to dispose of my letter as your property. I, however, cannot undertake its publication. I should defeat my original purpose in doing so, besides which no journals are open to me. In the Deutsche Monatsschrift, to which I am now and then asked to contribute, I do not like, on principle, to treat the question in this form; our object would not be furthered by it. Act therefore entirely according to your judgment. If you think it useless, leave it alone. If, however, you print the letter, omit what you think unfit for publicity. I should not willingly make additions, because they would of necessity have reference to the "original theatre," and about that I should have to say a great deal to make my idea comprehensible to the general public.
You have probably received my little pamphlet Ein Theater in Zürich. Much, yes, most, in it will not suit you, for the conditions here are too different from those of Weimar; but my idea of the essence of the activity of the "original theatre" the little work will make tolerably clear. In case you ask whether I wish to exclude altogether everything extraneous, I reply in advance, yes, for the present, and until the main object is attained, but not for the future. The main object is this: that the theatre imagined by me should, by the originality of its work, gain perfect individual independence, should educate itself to be a conscious individual. This object once attained, this individual independence achieved, then, and then only, should it exchange its achievements with those of other equally independent theatrical individualities, and by means of this exchange be fructified to ever greater capability and variety, extending in this manner to wider and generally human circles. This fructifying exchange can be successfully accomplished only when receiving means at the same time giving; only he who can give can receive with benefit to himself. At present our theatres are so wholly dependent, so entirely without individuality, that they can do nothing but receive, without having the power of really appropriating what they receive. Our theatres are undeveloped beings, pulpy, pappy molluscs, which can never bring forth a man.
I must refrain from saying any more on this head; it might easily lead me to writing another book of four hundred pages, and the writing of books I am determined to abandon in preference to producing a work of art. Only this much I must add: through you Weimar is already in a good way; proceed on that way of original achievement with conscious principle, express that principle distinctly, and by that means gain more and more participants in your consciousness; by that means you can easily show how an intention may gradually become a reality. Raff's opera has pleased me immensely; that is right, and now onwards! Or, to speak plainly, it is your turn now. Write an opera for Weimar, I entreat you; write it exactly for the artists who are there, and who through your work will be elevated, made more noble, more universal. Continue, if you like, your plans for the Italians; there also, I feel sure, you can do famous and useful things, but at the same time abide by what is nearest to you, by what is your present home; where you are in bodily presence, and with your whole mental energy, be there also with your productive will; do not trouble yourself about the other German theatres and their conditions. You do not want them in order to achieve something beautiful and at the same time useful. Candidly speaking, what do you seek just now, and with your present activity amongst the Italians, otherwise than an increase of your fame? Very well, but will that make you happy? For that you no longer care. Other conditions are necessary to give you happiness. Do something for your Weimar. Well, I will not entreat you any more for the present; you must find out for yourself what you have to do.
One thing more, however: work thoroughly for the culture of your theatrical people. You will get the desired artists from nowhere unless you create them for yourself. Be careful to make your singers first of all good actors; how is he to sing who cannot speak and declaim well? Nothing can here be done in a casual manner; you must proceed on principle and with expressed intention. For that reason think of the Goethe foundation! To speak plainly, you want a good stage-manager. Genast is a splendid fellow, but he has grown old in routine; he does not know, and will never understand, what has to be done. A man like Eduard Devrient would be of excellent effect for the training of your actors, for he knows what has to be done. I admit the difficulty of getting such a man. You must further have an able singing master. I believe that Götze has good qualities for the post, but he ought to have power as well; people ought to be compelled to learn from him. I am aware that a man does not become an artist by mere training, but he can never become an artist unless his organic faculties are healthily developed, and that is what is wanting amongst us almost everywhere. Other things will be easily set right if you are more careful in the choice of works selected for performance than is generally the case amongst us. The coarse mixture of all genres and all styles is the evil which prevents our actors from gaining any kind of artistic consciousness. Gluck today, Donizetti tomorrow, Weber today, Rossini or Auber tomorrow, serious today, frivolous tomorrow: what is the result? That the people can do neither Gluck nor Donizetti, neither the serious nor the frivolous. How terrible also are the translations! People get systematically accustomed to the absolute senselessness of scenic representations; look therefore to a rational treatment of the translated librettos. Before all, accustom your singers to looking upon their work in the first instance as a dramatic task; the accomplishment of their lyrical task will after that be an easy matter. Works of the earlier French school are most adapted to the purpose, because in them a natural dramatic intention is most perceptible. Singers who cannot execute well and effectively the Water Carrier, by Cherubini, or Joseph, by Méhul, how are they to be able to master the, in that case, enormous difficulties of, for example, one of my operas? The chief thing, however, will always be new works and such works as are adapted to our set of artists and have been written specially for this theatre.
But enough of preaching! If I have been almost impertinent, you must forgive me. Today is my birthday, and you could not have sent me a better present than your letter of yesterday. As yet Heaven has not given us fine weather, but I wait for the first bright, sunny day to commence the poem of my Young Siegfried with the pen. In my head it is ready. In July I hope to send you the poem. Your last news has once more made me desirous to write to the Hereditary Grand Duchess. The contact with a sympathetic, noble female nature is to me an infinitely joyful feeling, and that feeling I should like to gain as a blessing for my impending work. If you think that I might permit myself a slight deviation from the ordinary official style towards this lady, I should ask you one of these days to forward a letter from me to her. The official style I cannot manage. Our dear, foolish Zigesar always writes to me, Ew. Wohlgeboren, etc. I wish he would leave that alone. I am sorry when, in his kindness towards me, I stumble over this kind of powder and pigtail business.
Richard Wagner
Source: Project Gutenberg eBook #3835, Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt — Volume 1, No. 61