Devrient’s anxiety about the principal parts arose partly out of concern about her own.  She did not know what to do with the part of Venus; she had undertaken it for the sake of the success of the performance, for although a small part, so much depended upon its being ideally interpreted!  Later on, when the work was given in Paris, I became convinced that this part had been written in too sketchy a style, and this induced me to reconstruct it by making extensive additions, and by supplying all that which I felt it lacked.  For the moment, however, it looked as if no art on the part of the singer could give to this sketch anything of what it ought to represent.  The only thing that might have helped towards a satisfactory impersonation of Venus would have been the artist’s confidence in her own great physical attraction, and in the effect it would help to produce by appealing to the purely material sympathies of the public.  The certainty that these means were no longer at her disposal paralysed this great singer, who could hide her age and matronly appearance no longer.  She therefore became self-conscious, and unable to use even the usual means for gaining an effect.  On one occasion, with a little smile of despair, she expressed herself incapable of playing Venus, for the very simple reason that she could not appear dressed like the goddess.  ‘What on earth am I to wear as Venus?’ she exclaimed.  ’After all, I cannot be clad in a belt alone.  A nice figure of fun I should look, and you would laugh on the wrong side of your face!’

On the whole, I still built my hopes upon the general effect of the music alone, the great promise of which at the rehearsals greatly encouraged me.  Hiller, who had looked through the score and had already praised it, assured me that the instrumentation could not have been carried out with greater sobriety.  The characteristic and delicate sonority of the orchestra delighted me, and strengthened me in my resolve to be extremely sparing in the use of my orchestral material, in order to attain that abundance of combinations which I needed for my later works.

At the rehearsal my wife alone missed the trumpets and trombones that gave such brightness and freshness to Rienzi.  Although I laughed at this, I could not help feeling anxious when she confided to me how great had been her disappointment when, at the theatre rehearsal, she noticed the really feeble impression made by the music of the Sangerkrieg.  Speaking from the point of view of the public, who always want to be amused or stirred in some way or other, she had thus very rightly called attention to an exceedingly questionable side of the performance.  But I saw at once that the fault lay less with the conception than with the fact that I had not controlled the production with sufficient care.