It is chiefly people who only know The Flying Dutchman who doubt if I should write the libretti for my own operas. They argue that I am unequal to the task because of the difficulties I certainly created for myself in this subject. Those who know Rienzi, however, judge otherwise and assert that I could have found no more fortunate libretto than this self-made one. I really lay no claim to a poet's reputation and assure you I at first took to writing for myself of necessity, since no good libretti were offered me.
I could not now, however, compose on another's operatic text for the following reasons. It is not my way to choose some story or other at pleasure, get it versified and then begin to consider how to make suitable music for it. For this mode of procedure I should need to be twice inspired, which is impossible. The way I set to work is quite different. In the first place I am only attracted to matter the poetic and musical significance of which strike me simultaneously. Before I go on to write a verse or plot or scene I am already intoxicated by the musical aroma of my subject. I have every note, every characteristic motif in my head, so that when the versification is complete and the scenes arranged the opera is practically finished for me; the detailed musical treatment is just a peaceful meditative after-labour, the real moment of creation having long preceded it.
Furthermore, subject matter ought to be selected which is capable of musical treatment only. I would never take a subject which might be used just as well by an able playwright for spoken drama. As a musician I can choose subjects, develop situations and contrasts which must for ever remain outside the province of the poet as playwright. Here and now we arrive at the point where opera and drama should definitely part company, each amicably pursuing its own distinct path. It is the province of the present-day dramatist to give expression and spiritual meaning to the material interests of our own times, but to the operatic poet and composer falls the task of conjuring up the holy spirit of poetry as it comes down to us in the sagas and legends of past ages. For music affords a medium of synthesis which the poet alone, particularly in association with the stage, has not at command. Here is the way to raise opera to a higher level from the debasement into which it has fallen as the result of our expecting composers to take as their subjects commonplaces, intrigues, etc., things which modern comedy and drama without music are far more successful in presenting. For my next opera I have chosen the beautiful and characteristic saga of the knight Tannhäuser, who lingered in the Venusberg and went to Rome to seek absolution! I have amalgamated this saga with the story of the tournament of song at the Wartburg, where Tannhäuser takes the place of Heinrich von Ofterdingen. By this combination I get a rich subject of drama. I think it will be quite clear that only a musician could handle this subject.
Richard Wagner
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Volume 1, ed. Altmann/Hull (London: Dent, 1927), No. 104