Your Excellency may perhaps think it strange to hear a man's name for the first time and at the same time to be approached by him with so considerable a petition. Although I am a Saxon I have never, I regret to say, had a suitable occasion to lay any circumstantial proofs of my artistic capacities before the public of my fatherland. None the less, I am now in direct negotiation with the administration of the Academie Royale de Musique in Paris over an operatic subject composed especially for that theatre, and I hope likewise to attain a happy result of my labours in the capital of my native land.
I take the liberty of addressing myself to Your Excellency, patron of the arts and intendant of His Majesty's Court Theatre, with the humble plea that you will graciously consider the petition which I confidently urge upon your attention. It has long been one of my dearest hopes to see a great dramatic work of my own composition produced at the Court Theatre in Dresden. I have recently devoted my chief energies to completing an opera, Rienzi, written for certain singers of exceptional talent who are members of the Dresden Court Theatre, and I now hasten to send Your Excellency the score and libretto in the hope that you may be pleased to accord it a first performance.
May I also mention that, when I resolved to write this grand opera, I heard that a new and splendid playhouse was soon to be completed in Dresden. What I was told of its magnificent scale suggested to me the idea of elaborating the decor of my opera in a manner commensurate with the possibilities of such a playhouse. A glance over the libretto would convince Your Excellency that it is perhaps just the work to find a place in the repertoire after the opening of the new theatre.
Richard Wagner
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Volume 1, ed. Altmann/Hull (London: Dent, 1927), No. 51