ood name in the musical world, as he had already
written an opera called "Ramiro", which was put on the stage in Leipsic
and excited considerable controversy among his admirers and his
opponents. Lindner then left Leipsic for Weimar, where he studied
zealously and composed the above-mentioned opera which was at once
accepted on the small but celebrated stage of this town and has now
appeared on the greater one of Dresden. This opera is half romantic
half lyric, neither does it lack the humorous elements. It abounds in
melody, a great rarity in our times, and the romance (Lied) is its best
part.

Though the music is not precisely overpowering, it is very sweet and
pleasing; one sees that a great talent has been at work, if not a
genius.

The libretto is very nice on the whole, in some parts even charmingly
poetical and melodious.

The scene is laid in an Earldom on the Rhine.

The master-thief Wallfried, a young nobleman, who ten years before had
been put into a convent as younger son, has fled from it, and has since
then been the companion of roving minstrels and Bohemians. Having
heard of his elder brother's death, he comes home to claim his rights.
There he sees Waldmuthe, the only daughter of Count {212} Berengar, the
Seigneur of the Earldom. As her features are as sweet as her voice,
and as the father guards his treasures better than his daughter,
Wallfried falls in love with her, and after artfully robbing her of her
necklace, he even steals a kiss from her rosy lips. At first she
reproaches him, but at last willingly leaves her ornament in his hands,
which he keeps as a token of seeing her again.

At a fair, where Wallfried for the last time makes merry with his
companions and sings to them the song of the pretty Aennchen,--by the
bye a pearl of elegance and delicacy,--he sees Count Berengar and his
daughter, and at once reclaims his own name and castle as Heir von
Sterneck from the Seigneur.--But Waldmuthe's companion, Hertha sees her
mistress's chain on Wallfried's neck and as our hero will not tell how
he came by it, he is considered a thief. His friend Marquard now
pleads for him, intimating that he took the chain only to show his
adroitness as a master-thief. Count Berengar hearing this, orders him
to give three proofs of his skill. First he is to rob the Count of his
dearest treasure, which is guarded by his soldiers and which then will
be his own, secondly he is to steal the Count himself fro