maker of a pantomime bill might phrase it.
The absurdity of such an invention was
lessened at the rehearsal by the recusancy
of the actors and actresses to take the
required responsibility. Add to these wonders
mists that come and go on the open
landscape without any apparent rhyme or
reason, clouds, darkness, sunbursts, all so
many hackneyed effects dear to our children
and "groundlings" at Christmas time; and some
idea may be formed of the shows to exhibit
which the music has been bent and broken.
The congregation declare that the utter want
of success which attended the rehearsal was
owing to the stupidity of the Munich
machinists and painters. Yet these till now have
borne a deservedly high character throughout
Germany; and the stage of the Bavarian
capital is one notoriously convenient for any
purposes of change or effects of space. After
all, Herr Wagner's devices and designs to carry
off a dreary story and more dreary music, are
neither stupendous nor new, howbeit difficult
to realise.

In the early days of opera, a great sensation
was made by crowds, and chariots,
and horses, and descending and dissolving
globes, from which came forth singing and
dancing angels, in the Costanza e Fortezza
of Fux. It was not later than the early
part of the present century, that Spontini,
in his "pride of place" at Berlin, laid himself
open to the bitter sarcasms of German
composers and critics, stung into a slanderous
jealousy of the court-favour lavished
on an Italian, by introducing on the stage
in one opera, anvils, in another, elephants.
Meyerbeer is to this day by some—and
these even the defenders of Herr Wagner's
proceedings—stigmatised as an empiric,
because he connived at the resuscitation of the
dead nuns in Robert; contrived the ballet
of bathing ladies at Chenonceau, in Les
Huguenots, and combined the three marches
in Le Camp de Silesie. Herr Wagner has
denounced such appeals to the eye, with the
sharpness of an unscrupulous pen dipped in
verjuice. Those who venture to possess
memories, and bring them into the service of
critical and historical comparison, must
prepare to be abused for the blindness of their
antiquated prejudices. That which used to
be called a murder, is to-day too often
described as a vagary of misdirected insanity or
enthusiasm, arising from weariness of life
and its burdens, and hatred of conventionalisms.

Last of all—in accordance with the natural
order of precedence, it should have been
first—a few words remain to be said of
"the sound and fury," which signify little or
nothing as music, though they fill its place in
this strange piece of work. The absence of
melody is, of course, in accordance with Herr
Wagner's avowed contempt for everything that
shall please the ear. This being the condition
of matters, it is not wonderful that a common
four-bar phrase of upward progression,
repeated some thirty times or more in the
prelude, should please, and (to be just) its effect
at representing the ceaseless flow of water, is
picturesque and happy. The river nymphs
are next announced by a phrase borrowed
from Mendelssohn's overture to Melusine.
There is a pompous entry for the principal
bass voice, there is an effect of nine-eight
rhythm, borrowed from Meyerbeer's scene in
the cloisters of Saint Rosalie (Robert); and
these are all the phrases that can be retained
by those who do not believe in what has been
described by the transcendentalists, as
"concealed melody." The recitative in which the
scenes are conducted is throughout dry,
unvocal, and uncouth. One Gluck might never
have written to show how truth in declamation
may be combined with beauty of form, variety
of instrumental support, and advantageous
presentment of the actors who have to tell the
story. Then, Herr Wagner's orchestral portion
of the work is monotonous and without
variety. If his score be compared with those
by Weber, Meyerbeer, Berlioz, and M. Gounod
(whose ghost scene, in La Nonne Sanglante,
and procession of river-spirits in Mireille, come
as freshly back to the ear as if they had been
only heard yesterday) it will be found as
ineffective as it is overladen.

It may be said that such a judgment as the
above is one too sweeping in its condemnation,
after a single hearing, to be just. But with some
persons first impressions of music, especially be
that music theatrical, are last ones. Of course
curiosities of detail are not to be apprehended
and retained, under such circumstances; but
if not the slightest desire to return, on the
contrary a positive aversion, be engendered, in
persons not unused to listen, not devoid of
memory, the fault may not altogether lie in
their arrogance or prejudice. The beauties of
Beethoven's latest compositions—say his Ninth
Symphony, and latest quartetts—seize the ear
in the first moment of acquaintance; though no
time or familiarity may clear up the ugly and
obscure crudities which, also, they unhappily
contain. It will not avail to plead that it is
ungenerous or unjust to judge from a rehearsal;
when, as in the case of Das Rheingold, such
rehearsal was tantamount in correctness and spirit
to any first performance ever attended by
European critic. Guests, and some at no
small sacrifice, came to Munich from places
as far distant as London, Paris, Florence,
to ascertain what the newest production of
the newest Apostle and Iconoclast of his
day might prove. The majority of these
would hardly have spent time, money, and
fatigue, without expectation of pleasure; the
more so, as it had been largely circulated
that this Nibelungen Prologue was to mark
a complete change in Herr Wagner's manner,
being clear, simple, and melodious. The
majority returned to the places whence they
came, rather relieved than otherwise, by the
fact that Das Rheingold was withdrawn
indefinitely for further rehearsal (not alteration;
such, indeed, being impossible), and that they