conduct Elsa and Lohengrin to the bridal chamber. There, after a love
scene of enchanting beauty, her doubts break forth once more. 'How is
she to know,' she cries, 'that the swan will not come some day as
mysteriously as before and take her beloved from her arms?' In vain
Lohengrin tries to soothe her; she will not be appeased, and in frenzied
excitement puts to him the fatal question, 'Who art thou?' At that
moment the door is burst open, and Telramund rushes in followed by four
knights with swords drawn. Lohengrin lifts his sacred sword, and the
false knight falls dead at his feet. The last scene takes us back to the
banks of the Scheldt. Before the assembled army Lohengrin answers Elsa's
question. He is the son of Parsifal, the lord of Monsalvat, the keeper
of the Holy Grail. His mission is to succour the distressed, but his
mystic power vanishes if the secret of its origin be known. Even as he
speaks the swan appears once more, drawing the boat which is to bear him
away. Lohengrin bids a last farewell to the weeping Elsa, and turns once
more to the river. Now is the moment of Ortrud's triumph. She rushes
forward and proclaims that the swan is none other than Godfrey, Elsa's
brother, imprisoned in this shape by her magic arts. But Lohengrin's
power is not exhausted; he kneels upon the river bank, and in answer to
his prayer the white dove of the Grail wheels down from the sky,
releases the swan, and, while Elsa clasps her restored brother to her
breast, bears Lohengrin swiftly away over the waters of the Scheldt.

The interest of 'Lohengrin' lies rather in the subtle treatment of the
characters than in the intrinsic beauty of the story itself. Lohengrin's
love for Elsa, and his apparent intention of settling in Brabant for
life, seem scarcely consistent with his duties as knight of the Grail,
and, save for their mutual love, neither hero nor heroine have much
claim upon our sympathies. But the grouping of the characters is
admirable; the truculent witch Ortrud is a fine foil to the ingenuous
Elsa, and Lohengrin's spotless knighthood is cast into brilliant relief
by the dastardly treachery of Telramund. The story of 'Lohengrin' lacks
the deep human interest of 'Tannhaeuser,' and the music never reaches the
heights to which the earlier work sometimes soars. But in both respects
'Lohengrin' has the merit of homogeneity; the libretto is laid out by a
master hand, and the music, though occasionally monotonous in rhythm,