for means to carry
out the composer's great idea, viz., to perform the "Nibelungen" at a
theatre to be erected for the purpose, and by a select company, in the
manner of a national festival, and before an audience entirely removed
from the atmosphere of vulgar theatrical shows. After many delays
Wagner's hopes were attained, and in the summer of 1876 a gathering of
the principal celebrities of Europe was present to criticise the fully
perfected fruit of the composer's theories and genius. This festival
was so recent, and its events have been the subject of such elaborate
comment, that further description will be out of place here.

As a great musical poet, rather epic than dramatic in his powers,
there can be no question as to Wagner's rank. The performance of the
"Nibelungenring," covering "Rheingold," "Die Walkueren," "Siegfried," and
"Goetterdaemmerung," was one of the epochs of musical Germany. However
deficient Wagner's skill in writing for the human voice, the power and
symmetry of his conceptions, and his genius in embodying them in
massive operatic forms, are such as to storm even the prejudices of his
opponents. The poet-musician rightfully claims that in his music-drama
is found that wedding of two of the noblest of the arts, pregnantly
suggested by Shakespeare:

"If Music and sweet Poetry both agree,
As they must needs, the sister and the brother;
One God is God of both, as poets feign."

THE END.

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