There was one more card for him to play.  All his operas, so far, had been tragedies.  What if he were to write a comic opera?  Would not that be likely to get him access to the stage again, and help him financially?  He had the plan for a comic opera; indeed, he had sketched it as early as 1845, at the same time as the plot of “Lohengrin.”  Sixteen years it lay dormant in his brain.  At last he wrote out the poem in Paris, immediately after the “Tannhaeuser” disaster there.  Perhaps it would be more accurate to call “Die Meistersinger” a humorous opera; for while the story of the mediaeval knight who wins the goldsmith’s daughter has comic features, its chief characteristic is humor, with that undercurrent of seriousness that belongs to all masterpieces of humor.  To a certain extent, it is a musical and poetic autobiography, the victorious young Knight Walter, who sings as he pleases, without regard to pedantic rules, representing Wagner himself and the “music of the future,” while the vain and malicious Beckmesser stands for the critics, and Hans Sachs for enlightened public opinion.

It was during the time that he wrote the gloriously melodious and spontaneous music to this poem that the most important event of his life happened.  Work on the score was repeatedly interrupted by the necessity of making some money.  Most of his concerts in German cities, undertaken for this purpose, did not yield him any profits.  In Russia, however, he was very successful, and as he had the promise of a repetition of his success, he rented a fine villa at Penzing, near Vienna, and proceeded to enjoy life for a change.  Who can blame him for this?  As he said to a friend not long after this, “I am differently organized from others, have sensitive nerves, must have beauty, splendor, and light.  Is it really such an outrageous thing if I lay claim to the little bit of luxury which I like,—­I, who am preparing enjoyment for the world and for thousands?”

Unfortunately the second Russian project failed, through no fault of his own, and as he had borrowed money at usurious rates on his expected profits, he found himself compelled to fly once more from his creditors.  After spending a short time in Switzerland, he went to Stuttgart, where he persuaded his friend Weissheimer to go with him into the Suabian Alps, where he intended to hide for half a year, until he could finish his “Meistersinger,” and with the score raise money for his creditors.  The wagon had already been ordered for the next morning, May 3, 1864, and Wagner was packing his trunk, when a card was brought up to him with the inscription:  “von Pfistenmeister, Secretaire aulique de S.M. le roi de Baviere,” and the message that the Baron came by order of the King of Bavaria, and was very anxious to see him.