all, turn the page and have done with this dark chapter of
my life."

[Footnote 188: The writing of an opera was Wolf's great dream and
intention for many years.]

This letter--and it is not the only one--recalls the melancholy stoicism
of Beethoven's letters, and shows us sorrows that even the unhappy
Beethoven did not know. And yet how can we tell? Perhaps Beethoven, too,
suffered similar anguish in the sad days that followed 1815, before the
last sonatas, the _Missa Solemnis_, and the Ninth Symphony had awaked to
life in him.

* * * * *

In March, 1895, Wolf lived once more, and in three months had written
the piano score of _Corregidor_. For many years he had been attracted
towards the stage, and especially towards light opera. Enthusiast though
he was for Wagner's work, he had declared openly that it was time for
musicians to free themselves from the Wagnerian _Musik-Drama_. He knew
his own gifts, and did not aspire to take Wagner's place. When one of
his friends offered him a subject for an opera, taken from a legend
about Buddha, he declined it, saying that the world did not yet
understand the meaning of Buddha's doctrines, and that he had no wish to
give humanity a fresh headache. In a letter to Grohe, on 28 June, 1890,
he says:

"Wagner has, by and through his art, accomplished such a mighty
work of liberation that we may rejoice to think that it is quite
useless for us to storm the skies, since he has conquered them for
us. It is much wiser to seek out a pleasant nook in this lovely
heaven. I want to find a little place there for myself, not in a
desert with water and locusts and wild honey, but in a merry
company of primitive beings, among the tinkling of guitars, the
sighs of love, the moonlight, and such-like--in short, in a quite
ordinary _opera-comique_, without any rescuing spectre of
Schopenhauerian philosophy in the background."

After having sought the libretto of an opera from the whole world, from
poets ancient and modern,[189] and after having tried to write one
himself, he finally took that of Madame Rosa Mayreder, an adaptation of
a Spanish novelette of Don Pedro de Alarcon. This was _Corregidor_,
which, after having been refused by other theatres, was played in June,
1896, at Mannheim. The work was not a success in spite of its musical
qualities, and the poorness of the libretto helped on its failure.