a pair of singers as Praulein Malten and Herr
Gudehus will hardly be found elsewhere, and the
orchesbra and staging leave nothing to be desired — the violins especially are the realisation of the dreams and the eitbrts of all musicians from the Cremona makers to Joachim and Sarasate.
The Berlin Opera House cannot compare for a moment with that of Dresden. In the former every- thing looks tawdry and confined. In the box where I sat (3d Rang) I could not stand upright, and those who sit in the fourth Rang can touch the roof of the house with their hands ! The art of how not to ventilate is carried to the pitch of perfection, and that is no joke in a German summer
In view of the less abusive parts of Mr. Row- bothams article in the Nineteenth Century of last month, it may be well here very shortly to speak of the distinctive work Wagner has done for opera, and the objections raised to his compositions. In the first place, he has made all incoherent plots like that of the Magic Flute, and all senseless ones like that of Don Giovanni, im- possible. Even at the risk of tiring his audience, as he certainly does, for example, in the Rheingold, he only allows a pause where dramatic unity per- mits — unlike that between the acts in Fidello, where the audience has twenty minutes' grace to drink beer and smoke or walk while Rocco and Leonora descend a flight of steps. Lohengrin and the Meister singer, again, gain greatly by the action being confined to two days. The almost total exclusion of 'airs' («o< melody) — the natural outcome of Wagner's method — is a great bar to the popularity of his operas in England ; and yet it is the English in Germany who are his most enthusi- astic supporters. In short, Wagner's attempt to bring back the opera from its aberrations, and to lead it on the way to realise the conception of its founders, may be said to be now successful. There is much to object to, much to criticise ; but his operas have a unity, a coherence, and in general a human interest which are only too absent in the magnificent works of his great predecessors. This is not the place to talk of his tone-painting, his orchestral colouring, or the intimate relation between words and music, both alike his own work. That belongs to a more strictly musical criticism. But I should like to say a word about the question which is so regularly answered in the affirmative by Wagner's opponents, and is often left unanswered by his supporters, 'Does the Wagner style injure the voice ? ' Madame Patti, for example, says ' Yes,' and intimates that though her ambition would be to sing 'Elsa' in Lohengrin, she would only do it the year before she retired. And she would then probably have every reason to retire. Her voice is not fitted for such a role by nature or education, and it would be impossible for her, at the end of her artistic career, suddenly to enter on a new and difficult path with any chance of success. She would make a charming Rhine-Maiden or a Flower-Maiden, but Elsa, Eva, Brunnhilde, Isolde — danke schon. I have it on the best authority — that of Frau Materna, who has sung Wagner for seventeen years, and Wagner only for twelve ; of Herr Gudehus, who has made Wagner his special study for fifteen years ; and of Fraulein Malten, the most fascinating of all the army of Wagner singers, who has sung Wagner for thirteen years — that with suitable training, which is pre-eminently necessary, the voice should be able to undertake the work with no more damage than can be detected in the singing of these renowned artists. I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity of a long conversation with Fraulein Malten about Wagner and his music. She considers her ' Kundry ' (Parsifal) her most successful impersonation. Frau Cosima Wagner said that never had Kundry been so performed as Fraulein Malten had performed it this year. Curiously enough, the next character she chose as her favourite was Elisabeth (Tannhuuse?-) — the first and the last of Wagner's feminine creations. She takes her stand with those who hold that it is necessary to enter wholly into the character which it is intended to set forth, and says that the emotion which is so apparent in her acting, and which is the secret of its charm, is actually and keenly felt by her, and moves her to real tears. Those who have seen Jier pleading for Tannhauser's life, or praying for his salvation ; timid and sorrowing in the second scene of Lohengrin, or caressing and doubting in the third act ; full of exuberant life as we see her first in the Walkiire, or crushed to the earth as in the last act ; cruelly tried in the Gotterdammerung, and swift to self-sacrifice for love's sake ; but most of all, I think, when she raises her head from Tristan's dead body, and compels the emotion of the whole assembly as of one heart — those who have seen her in these scenes cannot believe otherwise than that it is Elisabeth, Elsa, Briinnhilde, Isolde who lives before them.
Franklin Peterson.
Berlin . . . Dresden, Sefl. iSSS.
