set pieces which had lived in the interim in the concert-room were
transferred into the opera-score with trifling alterations and
condensations and so were the set songs. As for the rest it needed only
that note-heads be supplied to some of the portions of the dialogue
which Humperdinck had designed for melodic declamation to have those
portions ready for the opera. Here an example:--

[figure: a musical score excerpt]

A German opera can generally stand severer criticism than one in
another language, because there is a more strict application of
principles in Germany when it comes to writing a lyric drama than in
any other country. So in the present instance there is no need to
conceal the fact that there are outbreaks of eroticism and offences
against the German language which are none the less flagrant and
censurable because they are, to some extent, concealed under the thin
veneer of the allegory and symbolism which every reader must have
recognized as running through the play. This is, in a manner,
Wagnerian, as so much of the music is Wagnerian--especially that of the
second act, which because it calls up scenes from the "Meistersinger"
must also necessarily call up music from the same comedy. But there is
little cause here for quarrel with Professor Humperdinck. He has
applied the poetical principle of Wagner to the fairy tale which is so
closely related to the myth, and he has with equal consistency applied
Wagner's constructive methods musically and dramatically. It is to his
great honor that, of all of Wagner's successors, he has been the only
one to do so successfully.

The story of "Konigskinder," though it belongs to the class of fairy
tales of which "Hansel und Gretel" is so striking and beautiful an
example, is not to be found as the author presents it in the literature
of German Marchen. Mme. Bernstein has drawn its elements from many
sources and blended them with the utmost freedom. To avoid a
misunderstanding Germans will insist that the title be used without the
article, for "Die Konigskinder" or "Zwei Konigskinder" both suggest the
simple German form of the old tale of Hero and Leander, with which
story, of course, it has nothing whatever to do. But if literary
criticism forbids association between Humperdinck's two operas, musical
criticism compels it. Many of the characters in the operas are close
relations, dramatically as well as musically--the royal children
themselves, the witches, of course