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 opéra-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 Alarcón. 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.
But the main thing was that Wolf's creative genius had returned. In April, 1896, he wrote straight away the twenty-two songs of the second volume of the Italienisches-Liederbuch. At Christmas his friend Müller sent him some of Michelangelo's poems, translated into German by Walter Robert-Tornow; and Wolf, deeply moved by their beauty, decided at once to devote a whole volume of Lieder to them. In 1897 he composed the first three melodies. At the same time he was also working at a new opera,Manuel Venegas, a poem by Moritz Hoernes, written after the style of Alarcón. He seemed full of strength and happiness and confidence in his renewed health. Müller was speaking to him of the premature death of Schubert, and Wolf replied, "A man is not taken away before he has said all he has to say."
He worked furiously, "like a steam-engine," as he said, and was so absorbed in the composition of Manuel Venegas (September, 1897) that he went without rest, and had hardly time to take necessary food. In a fortnight he had written fifty pages of the pianoforte score, as well as the motifs for the whole work, and the music of half the first act.
Then madness came. On 20 September he was seized while he was working at the great recitative of Manuel Venegas in the first act.
He was taken to Dr. Svetlin's private hospital in Vienna, and remained there until January, 1898. Happily he had devoted friends who took care of him and made up for the indifference of the public; for what he had earned himself would not have enabled him even to die in peace. When Schott, the publisher, sent him in October, 1895, his royalties for the editions of his Lieder of Mörike, Goethe, Eichendorff, Keller, Spanish poetry, and the first volume of Italian poetry, their total for five years came to eighty-six marks and thirty-five pfennigs! And Schott calmly added that he had not expected so good a result. So it was Wolf's friends, and especially Hugo Faisst, who not only saved him from misery by their unobtrusive and often secret generosity, but spared him the horror of destitution in his last misfortunes.
He recovered his reason, and was sent in February, 1898, for a voyage to Trieste and Venetia to complete his cure and prevent him from thinking of work. The precaution was unnecessary; for he says in a letter to Hugo Faisst, written in the same month:
"There is no need for you to trouble yourself or fear that I shall overdo things. A real distaste for work has taken possession of me, and I believe I shall never write another note. My unfinished opera has no more interest for me, and music altogether is hateful. You see what my kind friends have done for me! I cannot think how I shall be able to exist in this state.... Ah, happy Swabians! one may well envy you. Greet your beautiful country for me, and be warmly greeted yourself by your unhappy and worn-out friend, Hugo Wolf."
When he returned to Vienna, however, he seemed to be a little better, and had apparently regained his health and cheerfulness. But to his own astonishment he had become, as he says in a letter to Faisst, a quiet, sedate, and silent man, who wished more and more to be alone. He did not compose anything fresh, but revised his Michelangelo Lieder, and had them published. He made plans for the winter, and rejoiced in the thought of passing it in the country near Gmunden, "in perfect quiet, undisturbed, and living only for art." In his last letter to Faisst, 17 September, 1898, he says: