in the Romantic Drama that the comic
element blends on such perfectly equal terms with the tragic that they
contribute with equality to the general effect.'

"_Ludwig_. Even common opera-manufacturers have got hold of some dim
notion of that, for it is thence that the so-called Comic-Heroic operas
take their origin--productions in which the Heroic is often exceedingly
Comic, and the Comic is so far Heroic that it most heroically ignores
all the requirements of taste and propriety.'

"_Ferdinand_. 'According to your notion of the essentials of opera, we
can't congratulate ourselves on possessing very many.'

"_Ludwig_. 'No; most so-called operas are only plays with singing
added; and the utter absence of dramatic effect, which is ascribed
sometimes to the music, sometimes to the plot or to the words, is
really due to the lifelessness of the mass of scenes, tacked together
without inward connection or poetical truthfulness, and incapable of
kindling music into life. The composer has often to work between the
lines, as it were, on his own account, and the wretched words meander
along in a side-channel, not to be brought into the musical current by
any conceivable means. In such a case the music may be good enough;
that is,--without having depth enough to carry away the listener with
magic power, it may give a certain amount of pleasure, like a
glittering play of gay colours. Then the opera is merely a concert,
given on a stage, with dresses and scenery.'

"_Ferdinand_. 'As it is the Romantic Opera, in its strictest sense,
which is the only species that you recognise as opera, properly
so-called, how about musical Tragedies, and Comic Operas in modern
costume?--you repudiate them altogether, I presume.'

"_Ludwig_. 'Oh, no; not at all. In most of the older Tragic
Operas--such as are not written nowadays, unfortunately (either as
regards plots or music)--what so powerfully sways the audience is the
heroic nature of the action, and the inward strength of the characters
and situations. That dark mysterious power which rules, controls, and
disposes of Gods and Men, we see stalking along visibly before our
eyes; we hear the eternal, irreversible, immutable decrees of Fate, to
which the Gods themselves have to submit, pronounced and formulated
aloud, in awful and mysterious tones. From Tragic matter of this sort
the Fantastic element is perforce excluded; but a loftier language--in
the wondrous accents of Music--has to be e