this opera than of Wagner's
other operas, that one should be able to distinguish the motifs. When
Fasolt falls, or the dragon, or Mime, it is distinctly interesting
to know that the conspicuous phrase thrilling the air is the Curse
of the Ring; but we are easily willing to let Glances and Sighs
and the Effect of the Love-draught melt into one general fire of
tenderness.

There is likewise less need in the case of this opera than, I think,
any other of Wagner's, to be familiar beforehand with the argument.
Any one seeing the Rhine-gold unprepared would probably not understand
anything whatever, as far as the story is concerned. The same is
in some degree true of Walkuere and Goetterdaemmerung; even of
Parsifal one need to know the inwardness of the plot. But Tristan
and Isolde can be grasped through the eye by the dullest. A Woman
is seen expressing great anger; there is a scene of coldness and
incrimination between her and a Man. They drink from a golden cup
and are from that moment lovers. They talk lengthily and most
mellifluously of love in a garden at night. They are surprised by
one with an evident right to be incensed. The lover is wounded. In
a different scene he lies dying. His love comes to him. He expires
in her arms and she follows him in death. Any one can understand,
everyone sympathises.

In spite of which the study of the original text is full of great
reward; not only because one will hear the music after all with a
richer intellectual enjoyment, but even if one had no hope of hearing
the music. The text produces upon one to a singular extent--or do
we imagine it?--the effect of music. Its musical counterpart is
contained somehow in the written poetry, and mists rise before
our eyes when the small black type informs us that Isolde cries in
the ears of deaf love: "_Isolde rutt!... Isolde kam!_" no otherwise
than if the violins played upon our hearts.

LOHENGRIN

LOHENGRIN

I

Henry the Fowler, the German King, coming to Brabant to levy men-of-arms
for assistance against the Hungarian, has found the country distracted
with internal dissension, troubles in high places. These, as its
feudal head, he must settle before proceeding further. He summons
together the nobles of Brabant and holds his court in the open,
beneath the historical Oak of Justice, on the banks of the Scheldt,
by Antwerp.

He calls upon Friedrich von Telramund, conspicuously involved in
the quarrel disturbing the land, to l