nitently revealed to him the secret of the love potion which
she administered, he realises that they could not but yield to
its might. Ysolde, however, pays no heed to his words, but,
gazing fixedly at Tristan, she mournfully extols his charms
and love, until her heart breaks with grief, and she too sinks
lifeless to the ground. No restoratives can now avail to recall
the life which has flown forever, and King Mark blesses the
corpses of the lovers, and of the faithful servant who has
expired at their feet, as the curtain falls.

[Illustration: WALTHER CROWNED BY EVA.]

THE MASTER SINGERS OF NUREMBERG.

When Richard Wagner was only sixteen years of age he read with
great enthusiasm one of Hoffmann's novels entitled 'Saengerkrieg,'
giving a romantic account of the ancient musical contests at
the Wartburg in Bavaria. The impression made upon him by this
account was first utilised in his opera of 'Tannhaeuser,' when
his attention was attracted also to the picturesque possibilities
of the guilds formed by the burghers.

It was not until 1845, however, that he made definite use
of this material, and began the sketch for his only comic
opera. The first outline was drawn during a sojourn in the
Bohemian mountains, when he felt in an unusually light and
festive mood. But the work was soon set aside, and was not
resumed until 1862, when it was finished in Paris. The score
was then begun, and written almost entirely at Biberich on the
Rhine, and Wagner himself conducted the overture for the first
time at a concert in Leipzig.

This fragment was very well received and there was an
'enthusiastic demand for a repetition, in which the members
of the orchestra took part as much as the audience.' The opera
itself, however, was first performed under Von Buelow, in 1868, at
Munich. The best singers of the day took the principal parts, and
the result of their united efforts was 'a perfect performance;
the best that had hitherto been given of any work of the master.'

The opera, at first intended as a comical pendant to
'Tannhaeuser,' is, as we have already stated, Wagner's first
and only attempt to write in the comic vein, and the text
is full of witty and cutting allusions to the thick-headed
critics (at whose hands Wagner had suffered so sorely), who
sweepingly condemn everything that does not conform to their
fixed standard. During all the Middle Ages, and more especially
in the middle of the thirteenth century, the