You will be wondering that you have received no answer from me as yet to your two last letters. I wrote you one immediately with an enclosure for F. Mendelssohn-Bartholdy and had actually got some oiled linen so as to send him a big parcel of compositions through you, but I changed my mind entirely and sent you nothing, for I am now taking leave, once and for all, of the concert hall. I may perhaps even not take your advice that I should send a good overture to Leipzig. I do not want to be anyone's hanger-on, and your reports of Mendelssohn have finally dissuaded me. Adieu, ye solid splendours, I give myself up to the tinsel of the stage!
I am now a composer of operas only, and am casting myself, body and soul and all my hopes, into my opera Das Liebesverbot, at which I am hard at work now. I am becoming more and more responsible for the theatre here, and I have just luckily discovered and brought to light a couple of young talents who will let the theatrical world hear of them some time. Minna's sister Amalie Planer, lost in obscurity at Braunschweig, has a beautiful alto voice, and I have rehearsed her in Romeo. Few beginners have made such a sensation as she; people went absolutely mad over her.
I have likewise hunted out a little tenor called Schreiber and am training him to the great satisfaction of the public. The new repertory is moving well, and I delight in being absolute ruler of the opera. I am producing my operas promptly and to time. Perhaps I shall do as well as Mendelssohn, but I am only in Magdeburg and he is in Leipzig - that is the difference.
Now write to me and do not take things ill. I am not hankering after your honours; I am only trying to make a place for myself. I have got a nice friendly sitting-room and a splendid grand piano, and with these all would be well if I did not have to live within such horribly strict limits. You can imagine how penuriously I live when I have to pay off 30 thalers a month. I reckon on you; otherwise I am bankrupt.
Richard Wagner
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Volume 1, ed. Altmann/Hull (London: Dent, 1927), No. 26