Your Excellency may kindly remember having been troubled some three months since with a most humble communication of mine accompanying the score of an opera, Rienzi, which was the subject of my letter and the object of my petition. As since then I have not been honoured with any direct information as to how Your Excellency received this humble petition, I could not entirely curb a feeling of suspense which at length drove me to take steps to obtain news. Herr Hofrat Winkler kindly informed me that the affair had been held up chiefly because Your Excellency had not yet received a libretto of my opera.
I cannot quite understand through what oversight this lapse could have arisen, and I therefore hasten to repair the misfortune and send Your Excellency a copy of the libretto. On this occasion I also take the liberty of commenting upon a portion of the text. It concerns the open participation of the ecclesiastical power in the decisive catastrophe of the dramatic action. Although the slightest suggestion of dispute upon dogma or opinion arises, I am given to reflect whether my opera is suitable for presentation at the Catholic Court of my fatherland without some modification.
However that may be, I have not neglected to prepare certain modifications beforehand which are calculated to allay every scruple.
Richard Wagner
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Volume 1, ed. Altmann/Hull (London: Dent, 1927), No. 55