in her love. Adolar accepts the
challenge, and Lysiart departs for Nevers, where Euryanthe is living.
The second act discovers Euryanthe and Eglantine, an outcast damsel whom
she has befriended. Eglantine secretly loves Adolar, but extracts a
promise from Lysiart, who has arrived at Nevers, that he will marry
her. In return for this she gives him a ring belonging to Euryanthe,
which she has stolen, and tells him a secret relating to a mysterious
Emma, a sister of Adolar, which Euryanthe has incautiously revealed to
her. Armed with these Lysiart returns to the court, and quickly
persuades Adolar and the King that he has won Euryanthe's affection. No
one listens to her denials; she is condemned to death, and Adolar's
lands and titles are given to Lysiart. Euryanthe is led into the desert
to be killed by Adolar. On the way he is attacked by a serpent, which he
kills, though not before Euryanthe has proved her devotion by offering
to die in her lover's place. Adolar then leaves Euryanthe to perish,
declaring that he has not the heart to kill her. She is found in a dying
condition by the King, whom she speedily convinces of her innocence.
Meanwhile Adolar has returned to Nevers, to encounter the bridal
procession of Eglantine and Lysiart. Eglantine confesses that she helped
to ruin Euryanthe in the hope of winning Adolar, and is promptly stabbed
by Lysiart. Everything being satisfactorily cleared up, Euryanthe
conveniently awakes from a trance into which she had fallen, and the
lovers are finally united. Puerile as the libretto is, it inspired Weber
with some of the finest music he ever wrote. The spectacular portions of
the opera are animated by the true spirit of chivalry, while all that is
connected with the incomprehensible Emma and her secret is unspeakably
eerie. The characters of the drama are such veritable puppets, that no
expenditure of talent could make them interesting; but the resemblance
between the general scheme of the plot of 'Euryanthe' and that of
'Lohengrin' should not be passed over, nor the remarkable way in which
Weber had anticipated some of Wagner's most brilliant triumphs, notably
in the characters of Eglantine and Lysiart, who often seem curiously to
foreshadow Ortrud and Telramund, and in the finale to the second act, in
which the single voice of Euryanthe, like that of Elisabeth in
'Tannhaeuser,' is contrasted with the male chorus.

Weber's last opera, 'Oberon,' is one of the few works written in