《我的生平——第一卷》

By October 1837, Minna, having written Wagner a heartrending letter confessing her infidelity with Dietrich and begging his forgiveness, arrived in Riga with her sister Amalie, a singer. Wagner took the blame for her choices, and they rebuilt a quiet domestic life, with Minna’s domestic talents shining and Amalie’s beautiful voice earning her early success. But the sisters soon quarreled bitterly, and Amalie left to marry a Russian army officer, Carl von Meek, leaving Wagner and Minna alone again. Wagner thrived professionally at first at Riga’s new theatre, run by director Karl von Holtei, who favored him for his youth and his skill with popular Italian and French operas. But Wagner grew to despise the petty, undisciplined theatrical world around him, and worked in secret on his Rienzi score, determined to write a work too large for the tiny Riga stage, to force himself out of the small provincial circle.

Then came the betrayal that shattered his remaining faith in his friends. When Wagner was hospitalized with typhoid fever after Holtei forced him to conduct a performance in icy Mitau against his doctor’s orders, Holtei was overheard saying Wagner would never conduct again, “on his last legs.” Wagner recovered, but when Holtei abruptly left Riga, his successor Joseph Hoffmann informed Wagner that Holtei had made it a condition of taking over that Wagner was not rehired, the post going instead to Wagner’s old mentor and closest confidant Heinrich Dorn. Wagner confronted Dorn, and discovered his dearest friend had deliberately used Holtei’s hatred of Wagner to secure the post, knowing Wagner was in a precarious financial position with creditors from Königsberg and Magdeburg, and assuming Wagner would have to leave Riga anyway. Wagner was shattered to learn Dorn had exploited their private conversations to assess his weakness, and that Holtei’s hatred of him had been personal all along: Holtei had been making improper advances to Minna, and when she rejected him, he also tried to push her to take a wealthy young merchant as a lover, his fury at being rejected fueling his vendetta against Wagner.