After a few days’ rest for the actors, the second performance took place on 26th October, but with various curtailments, for which I had great difficulty in obtaining Tichatschek’s consent.  Although it was still of much more than average length, I heard no particular complaints, and at last adopted Tichatschek’s view that, if he could stand it, so could the audience.  For six performances therefore, all of which continued to receive a similar avalanche of applause, I let the matter run its course.

My opera, however, had also excited interest among the elder princesses of the royal family.  They thought its exhausting length a drawback, but were nevertheless unwilling to miss any of it.  Luttichau consequently proposed that I should give the piece at full length, but half of it at a time on two successive evenings.  This suited me very well, and after an interval of a few weeks we announced Rienzi’s Greatness for the first day, and His Fall for the second.  The first evening we gave two acts, and on the second three, and for the latter I composed a special introductory prelude.  This met with the entire approval of our august patrons, and especially of the two eldest, Princesses Amalie and Augusta.  The public, on the contrary, simply regarded this in the light of now being asked to pay two entrance fees for one opera, and pronounced the new arrangement a decided fraud.  Its annoyance at the change was so great that it actually threatened to be fatal to the attendance, and after three performances of the divided Rienzi the management was obliged to go back to the old arrangement, which I willingly made possible by introducing my cuttings again.

From this time forward the piece used to fill the house to overflowing as often as it could be presented, and the permanence of its success became still more obvious when I began to realise the envy it drew upon me from many different quarters.  My first experience of this was truly painful, and came from the hands of the poet, Julius Mosen, on the very day after the first performance.  When I first reached Dresden in the summer I had sought him out, and, having a really high opinion of his talent, our intercourse soon became more intimate, and was the means of giving me much pleasure and instruction.  He had shown me a volume of his plays, which on the whole appealed to me exceptionally.  Among these was a tragedy, Cola Rienzi, dealing with the same subject as my opera, and in a manner partly new to me, and which I thought effective.  With reference to this poem, I had begged him to take no notice of my libretto, as in the quality of its poetry it could not possibly bear comparison with his own; and it cost him little sacrifice to grant the request.  It happened that just before the first performance of my Rienzi, he had produced in Dresden Bernhard von Weimar, one of his least happy pieces, the result of which had brought him little pleasure.  Dramatically it was a thing with no