and all the pleasures of material life. Wagner's
head was full of them and Heine's writings and the sensual
"Ardinghello" of Heinse helped to intensify them.

For a time however his better nature retained the mastery. Beethoven
and Weber remained his good genii. In 1833 he composed an opera, "The
Fairies," modelled after their works, the text of which displayed the
earnest tendency of his nature. A fairy falls in love with a mortal
but can acquire human life only on condition that her lover shall not
lose faith and desert her, however wicked and cruel she may appear.
She transforms herself into a stone from which condition the yearning
songs of her lover release her. It is a characteristic feature of
Wagner's ideal conception of love that the lover then is admitted to
the perpetual joys of the fairy world, as a reward for his faith in
the object of his love. The work was never performed. Bellini, Adam,
and their associates controlled the stage in Germany, and he was
greatly disappointed. That grand artiste, Schroeder-Devrient, who
afterwards was to become so essential to Wagner, had achieved unusual
success in these light operas, especially in the role of _Romeo_.
He observed this and comparing the sparkling music of these French and
Italians with the German Kapellmeister-music which was then coming
into vogue, it seemed indeed tedious and tormenting. Why should not he
then, this youth of twenty-one, ready for any deed and every pleasure,
earnestly longing for success, enter upon the same course? Beethoven
appeared to him as the keystone of a great epoch to be followed by
something new and different. The fruit of this restless seething
struggle was "Das Liebesverbot oder die Novize von Palermo," his first
opera which reached a performance.

The material was taken from Shakspeare's "Measure for Measure," not
however without making its earnestness conform to the ideas of "Young
Europe," and leaving the victory to sensualism. _Isabella_, the
novice, begs of the puritanical governor her brother's life, who has
forfeited it through some love affair. The governor agrees to grant
the pardon, on condition that she shall yield to his desires. A
carnival occurs, and, as in "Masaniello," a young man who loves the
maiden, incites a revolution, exposes the governor, and receives
_Isabella's_ hand. The spirit which pervades this tempestuous
carnival pleasure is sufficiently characterized by a verse in the only
chorus-number, which