My friend Liszt is devilishly keen that I should write an opera for Paris. I have been there too, and have agreed with a poet of repute to give him a full plan for an operatic subject which he is to carry out in French, undertaking also to get me a commission for its composition from the Grand Opera.
I have now, besides Siegfried, two tragic and two comic operatic plots in mind, none of them, however, suitable for a French production. I have also a fifth, as to which I am indifferent in what tongue it sees daylight: Jesus of Nazareth. I am thinking of offering this subject to the Frenchman and hope therewith to be rid of the whole matter, for I should like to see the horror that this poem will arouse in my associate.
You can best estimate the joy with which I again contemplate the art-business of Paris by reading my big article in the National, Art and Revolution, which I think is to be published also as a German brochure by Wigand of Leipzig. I am living here now, supported in communal-wise by Liszt, merrily and, as regards better nature, I may almost say happily. My one great anxiety was for my poor wife and I am now expecting her to be with me very shortly. To my great surprise I found myself famous here, and this through the pianoforte arrangements of all my operas.
At the beginning of winter I shall go to Paris again to do some conducting and to settle my operatic affairs. But I now intend to make my real home here. As you know, I felt the impending Dresden catastrophe long beforehand in my very bones, but I had no inkling of the hurricane which was actually to drive my barque away from the place. You are probably equally aware that no amnesty or restitution in the world could persuade me again to be that which I was, to my sorrow, in Dresden. Have you perchance any reliable news as to the progress of the inquiries? I am very concerned for the fates of Heubner, Rockel and Bakunin. These people ought certainly not to be imprisoned.
Yesterday I at last got my scores. I went through Lohengrin a little on the piano and I simply cannot tell you what an amazingly affecting impression this work of my own made upon me! You have already undertaken at my request to prepare as occasion offers a pianoforte arrangement of this opera. I am sure it would be a disappointment to you and even more to me if anything were to impede this work, so if you still have a mind to it and would like to enter into an agreement with me, always upon the understanding that you are to be indemnified for your trouble by the future publisher of the opera, I would ask you to apply for the score which I sold to the Dresden Theatre, so that you can begin upon the pianoforte arrangement.
Richard Wagner
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Volume 1, ed. Altmann/Hull (London: Dent, 1927), No. 158