Most revered master! Directly I heard of the appearance of a new dramatic work [The Crusades] of yours I proposed to ask you what date would best suit you for the performance of the same in Dresden, yourself being present, in order to be able to discuss immediately with our director-in-chief the terms and details of an invitation to you to this effect. Now, however, you have yourself approached Herr Lüttichau and we, to our shame, can do nothing but thankfully accept your offer. There could be no more important event for present-day German opera than the reappearance in it of such a master as yourself. God knows I am of the sorrowful opinion that our younger operatic composers are quite unequal to the task of revivifying German opera and recent works have forced me regretfully to the conclusion that these people of whom I speak have no idea in their heads save to please at all costs. They doubt, they despair of a specifically German spirit and think they must set about being cosmopolitan. They think they can blend Auber-ish spiciness with Donizetti-ish tunefulness in a flux compounded of Teuton profundity, and so make sure of producing something universally acceptable. Practically all modern German opera seems to me to suffer from this objectionable quest for superficial success. These people have no sure faith in the invincibility of the good and true, and how can there be inspiration without such a faith? And how can a work of art be created without inspiration? It is striking how these people always see themselves beaten. Their works, which owe their very being simply to the desire to please everyone, in the end please no one. They are not piquant enough for Auber, not emphatic enough for Donizetti and much too trivial for the rest of us. Here in Dresden we have found all these qualities in the most recent work of a famous German composer. Ah well, Heaven be praised which put it into your mind to give us something new. We hail it with joy and firm confidence. With the deepest admiration and submission.
Richard Wagner
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Volume 1, ed. Altmann/Hull (London: Dent, 1927), No. 112