To my dear ones in Paris! Which of you in particular shall I write to? Shall I give each of you a certain piece of the news? Shall I pretend I have a secret to impart to the one which the other is to know nothing of? Call the holy Council of Five together, give Cecilie the honour of precedence - you owe her that in any case as the only woman among you - and hear how it goes with your brother. The most remarkable thing to me is the endurance of the public. I cut it as short as possible, yet the opera lasts till ten-thirty and as far as we know there has not been an empty place at any performance. Everyone has listened with absolutely rapt attention till the last fall of the curtain. And that means something in Dresden. While I was busy with the cutting down I made some odd discoveries. The singers said, "Yes, it is dreadfully trying," but no one wanted anything cut out. I begged Tichatschek on my knees to let something be taken out of his terribly exacting part but no possibility! Always the same answer, "No, it is too heavenly. It is too heavenly!" After all this I was really excited about my honorarium. Everyone guessed fabulous totals - now the takings for the first three performances were to be mine - now I was to have 2000 thalers in no time, and so on. Instead of all this, after the third performance I got a letter from His Excellency stating in the most flattering terms that for my most excellent and beautiful work he sent me an honorarium of 300 thalers, although the usual honorarium for an opera is only 20 louis d'or; he could, however, not resist making an exception in my case as an additional means of assuring me of his thanks. You see, then, how it is as long as one has to leave such things to the generosity of a manager. My one comfort is that I know a change is coming and another time on a similar occasion I shall be able to make demands. Well, my dear children, with these my first takings I cannot help anyone very much, for firstly I must at once pay my debts to Brockhaus out of it, secondly my old Magdeburg creditors are threatening me with actions and I shall have to quiet them as well as I can. Then our own personal equipment, shirts, underlinen, etc., is in an indescribable condition and urgently calls for renewals, etc. But after such a fabulous success it is unthinkable that my finances should remain where they are. I hope soon at least to be able to sell the score in certain other places and I shall not long lack a good publisher who will pay me properly. With these expectations, which are certainly not frivolous, I hope to console you and my Parisian creditors for a short while longer and I promise to allot my next takings exclusively to them! It is unthinkable that I shall have to await them long. So, with a good conscience, you can comfort anyone you see pining after me.
Richard Wagner
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Volume 1, ed. Altmann/Hull (London: Dent, 1927), No. 77