rto unknown opera is no young man. He is
over sixty, and his well deserved fame reaches him but tardily.
Alexander {139} Ritter, a relation and a true friend of Wagner's, was
one of the few, who gave his help to the latter when he fled to
Switzerland poor and abandoned. Though a warm admirer of Wagner's
music, Ritter is not his echo. His music, saturated with the modern
spirit is absolutely independant and original. His compositions are
not numerous; two operas and a few songs are almost all he did for
immortality, but they all wear the stamp of a remarkable talent. "Idle
Hans" is a dramatic fairy-tale of poetical conception. Its strength
lies in the orchestra, which is wonderfully in tune with the different
situations. After having been represented in Weimar ten years ago, the
opera fell in oblivion, from which it has now come forth, and was given
on the Dresden stage on Nov. 9th 1892. It has met with unanimous
approval from all those, who understand fine and spiritual music.

The plot is soon told.

Count Hartung has seven sons, all grown up after his own heart except
the youngest, Hans, called the Idle, who prefers basking in the
sunshine and dreaming away his life to hunting and fighting. He is a
philosopher, and a true type of the German, patient, quiet and
phlegmatic, who does not deem it worth his while to move a finger for
all the shallow doings of the world in general, and his brothers in
particular. The son's idleness so exasperates his father, that he
orders him to be chained like a criminal to a huge oaken post standing
in the courtyard, forbidding anybody under {140} heavy penalty, to
speak to him. His brothers pity him, but they obey their father.

Left alone, Hans sighs after his dead mother, who so well understood
him, and who had opened his eyes and heart to an ideal world, with all
that is good and noble. Far from loathing his father, he only bewails
the hardness of him, for whose love he craves in vain. At last he
falls asleep. Seeing this the maid servants come to mock him (by the
bye a delightful piece of music is this chatter-chorus). When Hans has
driven away the impudent hussies, his brother Ralph the Singer
approaches to assure him of his unvarying love.--He is the only-one who
believes in Hans' worth, and now tries hard to rouse him into activity,
for he has heard, that the Queen is greatly oppressed by her enemies,
the Danes. But Hans remains unmoved, telling him quietly to w