Falk’s Reviews > Richard Wagner: A Biography > Status Update

"He returned to Vienna [from the concert tour of Russia, 1863] with a very considerable profit. Astonishingly this tidy sum of roubles, quite sufficient to have bought him two modestly comfortable years in which to complete Meistersinger, was squandered in a matter of weeks.(...)
Wagner escaped from Vienna on 23 March and aimed for Switzerland via Munich....
‘Only a miracle can save me now’, he wrote to Cornelius."