My dear friend,
Accept my cordial thanks for your last kind letter, and for the beautiful performance of Lohengrin, which you have again accomplished. According to all accounts, it must have realized my wishes in a high degree. In such circumstances my longing increases to enjoy my work, of which hitherto I have only felt the pains of giving birth; and my grief at being condemned to the fate of a blind and deaf man toward my own artistic creations begins to have a more and more depressing effect upon me. The existing impossibility of seeing and hearing my works makes the inspiration for new creations so grievously difficult that I can only think with sorrow, and with an unspeakably bitter feeling, of the execution of new works. I tell you this for the sake of truth, and without accompanying my complaint by wishes which, as no one knows better than I, must remain unfulfilled.
As regards my Nibelung drama, you, my good, sympathetic friend, regard my future in too rosy a light. I do not expect its performance, not at least during my lifetime, and least of all at Berlin or Dresden. These and similar large towns, with their public, do not exist for me at all. As an audience I can only imagine an assembly of friends who have come together for the purpose of knowing my works somewhere or other, best of all in some beautiful solitude, far from the smoke and pestilential business odour of our town civilization. Such a solitude I might find in Weimar, but certainly not in a larger city. If I now turn to my great work, it is done for the purpose of seeking salvation from my misery, forgetfulness of my life. I have no other aim, and shall think myself happy when I am no longer conscious of my existence. In such circumstances my only joy is to know at least that I may benefit my friends by my art; in their sympathy with my works lies the only enjoyment I find in them.
For that reason I am very pleased that you are thinking of performing the Flying Dutchman, and I hope that those who love me will reward you for your trouble. As to the representation, and especially the scenery, I shall come to an agreement with you in due time. In Kassel it is said to have been not unsatisfactory, and some communication with the scenic artist there as to the arrangement of the ships, etc., would therefore seem desirable. Do not begin the copying of the orchestral parts until I have sent to you from here a copy of the score, in which, in accordance with my more recent experiences of orchestral effect, I have revised the instrumental parts.
As regards Tannhäuser, I am glad to learn that you think of complying with my wish to have it given in the form on which I have fixed as the best. On that condition only can a permanent success of that opera at Weimar be of interest to me. I had not the slightest fault to find with you for thinking certain omissions necessary when you first rehearsed Tannhäuser at Weimar. You did not do this because you objected to the omitted parts, but because the artistic resources which were then at your disposal filled you with natural diffidence. I know in particular that in this manner arose the large cut in the finale of the second act, which displeased me so much when I attended the rehearsal at Weimar. This is the scene where Elizabeth throws herself in front of the knights to protect Tannhäuser. In scenes of this kind, before all others, my feeling for the perfect truth and nature of things impels me to use all the means of art which are within my grasp, and the grandeur of the situation can only be rendered if not the slightest of its essential parts is wanting. In this scene it is necessary that those who rush at Tannhäuser should not be driven away from him like children. Their wrath, their fury, which impels them to the immediate murder of the outlaw, should not be quelled in the turning of a hand, but Elizabeth has to employ the highest force of despair to quiet this roused sea of men, and finally to move their hearts to pity. Only then do both fury and love prove themselves to be true and great; and just in the very gradual calming down of the highest excitement, as represented in this scene, I discover my greatest merit in the interest of dramatic truth.
After you have in Lohengrin solved much more difficult problems of representation, it becomes, I tell you so openly, dear friend, your duty to give this scene completely, and I know that success will reward you. It is the same with all other things. In Tannhäuser's narration (Act III.) the trombones in the reminiscence of Rome cannot produce the right impression unless this theme has before been heard completely and in fullest splendour, as I give it in the instrumental introduction to the last act, etc. I ask you therefore to adhere strictly to the full score which I had sent to you from Dresden with all my marks; and I will only add that the song of Tannhäuser in the first act should be sung in its entirety, the three verses: the real climax, especially in its effect upon Venus, is otherwise totally lost.
Concerning the new conclusion of the last act, I was very angry that it was not given at Weimar from the first, as I assumed at the time that it would be. Even then I did not want a new public to know the first version, which was caused by a misapprehension on my part of the essence of the scene, as to which unfortunately only the first performance at Dresden enlightened me. Nothing that lies within the possibilities of representation on the stage should be only thought or indicated, but everything should be actually shown. The magical illumination of the Venusberg was, however, no more than an indication; the magic event becomes reality only if Venus herself appears and is heard. This is so true that the afterthought of this situation brought me great wealth of music; consider the scene with Venus in the last act, and you will agree with me that the previous version stands to it in the relation of an engraving to an oil picture. It is just the same with the appearance of the body of Elizabeth. When Tannhäuser sinks down by the side of that body, and sighs, “Holy Elizabeth, pray for me!” that is realized which was formerly only indicated. As I said before, if the performance of Tannhäuser in Weimar cannot be a complete one, it loses all value for me, for in that case I shall not have drawn the public up to me, but shall have accommodated myself to the public, and that I do not care to do any longer.
Through B. I hear that the Liebesmahl der Apostel is on occasion to be given at Weimar. I call your attention to the fact that the orchestration of this work was designed for a vast space, the Frauenkirche of Dresden, and for a chorus of a thousand men. For a smaller room and a less numerous chorus the brass orchestra should be reduced to the usual limits, and especially the four trumpets should be reduced to two. That reduction will have no great difficulties, and B., if I ask him, will be quite able to perform the task well.
To Princess Wittgenstein, who has delighted me with a very friendly letter, I ask you to express my best thanks for her kindness. The deep interest which she has again shown in my Lohengrin, particularly at the last representation, is of priceless value to me. Her intelligent remarks on the character of Ortrud attracted me especially, as well as the comparison she makes between the efforts of the previous and the actual representative of that part. To which side of the question I incline your valued friend will recognize at once when I explain to her my view of the character by simply saying that Ortrud is a woman who does not know love. By this everything that is most terrible is expressed. Politics are her essence. A political man is repulsive, but a political woman is horrible. This horror I had to represent. There is a kind of love in this woman, the love of the past, of dead generations, the terribly insane love of ancestral pride which finds its expression in the hatred of everything living and actually existing. In man this love is ludicrous, but in woman it is terrible, because a woman, with her strong natural desire for love, must love something; and ancestral pride, the longing after the past, turns in consequence to murderous fanaticism. In history there are no more cruel phenomena than political women.
It is not, therefore, jealousy of Elsa, perhaps for the sake of Frederick, which inspires Ortrud, but her whole passion is revealed only in the scene of the second act where, after Elsa's disappearance from the balcony, she rises from the steps of the minster and invokes her old, long-forgotten gods. She is a reactionary person who thinks only of the old and hates everything new in the most ferocious meaning of the word; she would exterminate the world and nature to give new life to her decayed gods. But this is not merely an obstinate, morbid mood in Ortrud; her passion holds her with the full weight of a misguided, undeveloped, objectless feminine desire for love. For that reason she is terribly grand. No littleness of any kind must occur in this representation; she must never appear simply malicious or annoyed; every utterance of her irony, her treachery, must transparently show the full force of the terrible madness which can be satisfied alone by the destruction of others or by her own destruction. She of the two actresses who approaches this intention most nearly must therefore be thought the better of the two.
Once more, dear friend, my best compliments to the Princess, and my warmest thanks for her communication. Permit me to recall to your memory the medallion I asked you for; it will give great pleasure to me.
Richard Wagner
Source: Project Gutenberg eBook #3835, Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt — Volume 1, No. 72