f moss, for
disobeying his orders, and covered her with her helmet, after plunging
her into a magnetic sleep which is to last until a hero shall come to
wake her. He strikes the rock with his spear, whereupon a flame breaks
out that quickly becomes a sea of fire encircling the rock. Then he
disappears in the fire toward the background, and for several minutes
there is no one on the stage but the sleeping Valkyrie, and nothing to
be heard but the crackling and roaring of the flames, re-echoed in the
orchestra; and this is the end of the opera.

One more illustration: The greater part of the second act of "Die
Meistersinger" is taken up with _Beckmesser's_ serenade, comically
interrupted by the songs and the hammering of _Hans Sachs_ the
cobbler. Toward the end the apprentice _David_ sees _Beckmesser_, and
imagining he is serenading _his_ sweetheart, assaults and beats him
most unmercifully. The noise attracts the neighbors, who all take part
in the affray, and the scene culminates in a perfect pandemonium of
noise. Now there is hardly an operatic composer who would not have
closed the act with this exciting and tumultuous chorus. Not so
Wagner. The sound of the watchman's horn suddenly clears the street,
and no one is left but the watchman himself, who timorously toddles up
the street with his lantern, while the moon rises above the roofs of
the houses, and the muted strings of the orchestra softly and dreamily
recall a few of the motives of the preceding scenes. I was sitting
next to Professor Paine, of Harvard, at a performance of this opera at
the Metropolitan, one evening. He had not seen it before, and I shall
never forget the expression of surprise on his face when he saw the
curtain descending on this dreamy moonlight scene, with _a deserted
stage_. He considered it a bold deviation from established operatic
customs, and yet he could not for a moment deny that it was infinitely
more poetic than the traditional final chorus, with its meaningless
noise and pomp.

Not that Wagner despised the chorus, as is sometimes said. He showed
in the third act of this same opera, in the scene of the
folk-festival, that when a chorus is called for by the situation no
one can supply a more inspired and inspiring volume of concerted sound
than he. With the possible exception of the last number in Bach's
Passion music, I regard the choral music of this act as the most
sublime ever written. Here, at any rate, the _vox populi_ is di