Dear Hans, or most esteemed friend, I have just written to Uhlig about Tannhäuser. He is to forward the score arranged as I would wish the opera to be given in Weimar. It is to be hoped that the reasons which made Liszt decide on the cuts no longer exist. Weimar must set a good example now. I cannot understand why Weimar does not produce my The Flying Dutchman now. Two and a half years ago Liszt was quite right to be shy of letting the less brilliant Dutchman follow hard upon Tannhäuser, but now things are different. My friends no longer need to be led blindfold; they know now where they are with me, and it is just they who would now find deep and lasting satisfaction in The Flying Dutchman. In my Introduction to my Poems, which Liszt must get at once, I explain very fully the relationship of this opera to the two succeeding ones. I hope that he and my friends may thereby be incited to take up this opera. It belongs to the other two as the beginning to the middle and end, and a knowledge of this trefoil is indispensable to whosoever will know me. Liszt has the score. Here and there the brass might be moderated a little with discretion. The cadenzas in Daland's aria and Eric's cavatina, Acts II and III, must be omitted.
Richard Wagner
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Volume 1, ed. Altmann/Hull (London: Dent, 1927), No. 208