When at last the curtain fell, I was under the impression, not so much from the behaviour of the audience, which was friendly, as from my own inward conviction, that the failure of this work was to be attributed to the immature and unsuitable material used in its production.  My depression was extreme, and a few friends who were present after the piece, among them my dear sister Clara and her husband, were equally affected.  That very evening I decided to remedy the defects of the first night before the second performance.  I was conscious of where the principal fault lay, but hardly dared give expression to my conviction.  At the slightest attempt on my part to explain anything to Tichatschek I had to abandon it, as I realised the impossibility of success, I should only have made him so embarrassed and annoyed, that on one pretext or another he would never have sung Tannhauser again.  In order to ensure the repetition of my opera, therefore, I took the only course open to me by arrogating to myself all blame for the failure.  I could thus make considerable curtailments, whereby, of course, the dramatic significance of the leading role was considerably lessened; this, however, did not interfere with the other parts of the opera, which had been favourably received.  Consequently, although inwardly very humiliated, I hoped to gain some advantage for my work at the second performance, and was particularly desirous that this should take place with as little delay as possible.  But Tichatschek was hoarse, and I had to possess my soul in patience for fully a week.

I can hardly describe what I suffered during that time; it seemed as if this delay would completely ruin my work.  Every day that elapsed between the first and second performance left the result of the former more and more problematic, until at last it appeared to be a generally acknowledged failure.  While the public as a whole expressed angry astonishment that, after the approval they had shown of my Rienzi, I had paid no attention to their taste in writing my new work, there were may kind and judicious friends who were utterly perplexed at its inefficiency, the principal parts of which they had been unable to understand, or thought were imperfectly sketched and finished.  The critics, with unconcealed joy, attacked it as ravens attack carrion thrown out to them.  Even the passions and prejudices of the day were drawn into the controversy in order, if possible, to confuse men’s minds, and prejudice them against me.  It was just at the time when the German-Catholic agitation, set in motion by Czersky and Ronge as a highly meritorious and liberal movement, was causing a great commotion.  It was now made out that by Tannhauser I had provoked a reactionary tendency, and that precisely as Meyerbeer with his Huguenots had glorified Protestantism, so I with my latest opera would glorify Catholicism.