RICHARD WAGNER (1813-1883) Autograph letter signed «Richard Wagner» [to tenor Josef Ticháček], in German.

Zurich, 27 October 1854. 1 p. in-8, a few marginal tears. Wagner and Dresden. Wagner had had to fl ee Germany in 1849 after compromising himself in the revolutionary events of the preceding months. He had lost his position as Kapellmeister in Dresden, where Rienzi had been successful, but where The Flying Dutchman and Tannhäuser had been unwelcome, and where Lohengrin had fi rst been accepted, only to be abandoned in 1848 by the general manager of the Saxon Court Theatre in Dresden, Wolf Adolf August von Lüttichau. Nevertheless, Wagner maintained close friendships there, for example with the choirmaster Wilhelm Fischer and the tenor Josef Ticháček. Having participated in the creations of Rienzi (1842) and Tannhäuser (1845), the Bohemian tenor Joseph Ticháček (Tichatchek) was much appreciated by Richard Wagner. He made his career fi rst in Vienna, and then as an ornament at the Dresden Opera House in the 1840s and 1850s.