concealing her emotion. Onegin explains to the Prince, that he has
just returned from his travels.--He tries to talk with Tatiana; she
however turns to her husband, pleading fatigue, and leaves the
ball-room with him.

Onegin, torn by jealousy and love, decides, to recover her affection at
any cost.

In the final scene he implores Tatiana, to be his own. The young wife
resists, reminding him {528} of the past, when he spurned the simple
country maiden's blind love. At last she grows weak and confesses,
that her love for him is not dead. His wooing growing more passionate,
Tatiana declares, that she means to remain true to her husband, and
refuses to elope with him, but feeling that she cannot resist him much
longer, she flees, while Onegin rushes away, cursing himself and his
whole life.

ELEKTRA.

Tragedy in one act by HUGO VON HOFMANNSTHAL.

Music by RICHARD STRAUSS.

The first production of Strauss' Elektra took place in Dresden January
25th, 1909. It met with immense applause from one part, with trenchant
criticism from the Philistines.

Certainly Strauss is neither Wagnerian nor academical, and certain it
is, that his new work is interesting enough, to necessitate its
admission in the Standard Operaglass.

The instrumentation is marvellous; orchestral impossibilities are
unknown to Strauss. Although he depicts with predilection the weird
and ghastly, following closely the libretto, often sacrificing beauty
of expression to realistic truth, yet he also finds motives of deep
feeling. These are for instance the melodious songs of Chrysothemis,
the sisters' first duet and the recognition of Orestes by Elektra.

The legend of Orestes has occupied the poets of all times. Its
greatest interpreter was Sophokles, who first chose Elektra for the
heroine of his drama. {529} But while classic grandeur prevails in the
old poet's drama, while he makes Elektra the tool of destiny decreed by
the gods, the Viennese poet goes back to the original myth, depriving
his heroine of every human feeling. She lets herself be guided only by
her thirst for vengeance, and by her own savage and unprincipled
instincts, and appears in striking contrast to her sister Chrisothemis,
whose gentle nature is the one redeeming feature in the drama.

The scene is laid in Mykene.

In the opening scene five maids are talking about Elektra, who enters
haggard and in rags, shunning them and disappearing again like a hunted
an