We shall have finished our cure in another four days and shall then have spent a full five weeks upon it. There are signs that it has been a success for me and for Minna. We kept away from acquaintances as far as possible in the customary way and confined ourselves to wanderings in the woods and hills. But my brain refuses to lose its restlessness and so yesterday I finished a complete and detailed plan for Lohengrin, with which I am exceedingly pleased and, yes, I admit it, which fills me with proud satisfaction. You know how sometimes I used to be troubled that I should never be able to find another subject to touch Tannhäuser for warmth and originality. But the better I get to know this new subject of mine, the more inwardly I grasp it, the more richly and luxuriantly it breaks forth into a wealth of bloom which it truly delights me to call mine. The discovery and shaping of this work has, moreover, this great interest attaching: the old German poem in which this most poetic of sagas has been preserved is the poorest and flattest of the kind that has come down to us, and I am glad to have been able to free this almost unrecognisable saga from the dust and rubbish of the old poet's prosaic treatment and to have brought to light its great poetic values through my own inventive and plastic powers. But, apart from that, what a fortunate operatic text it is! Effective, alluring, impressive, moving in every part! Johanna's role in it, which is very important and is really the chief part, is to be the most charming and affecting in the world.
I hope to God that the desire, or rather the irresistible impulse, to begin a new opera will not come upon me this winter so that I can take a really clear-headed and active interest in our Royal Saxon Opera! I have many very thoroughgoing schemes in mind.
Richard Wagner
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Volume 1, ed. Altmann/Hull (London: Dent, 1927), No. 115