h are harmonious and well turned. The
translation is quite free and {316} independent, but the sense and the
course of action are the same, though somewhat shortened and modified,
so that we only find the chief of the persons, we so well know.

Kate is the same headstrong young lady, though she does not appear in a
very bad light, her wilfulness being the result of maidenly pride,
which is ashamed to appear weak before the stronger sex. She finds her
master in Petrucchio however and after a hard and bitter fight with her
feelings, she at last avows herself conquered, less by her husband's
indomitable will, than by her love for him, which acknowledges him as
her best friend and protector.

Then her trials are at an end, and when her sister Bianca with her
young husband Lucentio and her father Baptista, visit her, they are
witnesses of the perfect harmony and peace which reign in Kate's home.

TANNHAeUSER.

Romantic Opera in three acts by RICHARD WAGNER.

With this opera begins a new era in the history of the German theatre.
Tannhaeuser is more a drama than an opera, every expression in it is
highly dramatic; the management of the orchestra too is quite different
from anything hitherto experienced, it dominates everywhere, the voice
of the performer being often only an accompaniment to it. Tannhaeuser
is the first opera, or as Wagner {317} himself called it, drama of this
kind, and written after this one, all Wagner's works bear the same
stamp.

Wagner took his subject from an old legend, which tells of a minstrel,
called Tannhaeuser (probably identical with Heinrich von Ofterdingen),
who won all prizes by his beautiful songs and all hearts by his noble
bearing. So the palm is allotted to him at the yearly "Tournament of
Minstrels" on the Wartburg, and his reward is to be the hand of
Elizabeth, niece of the Landgrave of Thuringia, whom he loves. But
instead of behaving sensibly, this erring knight suddenly disappears
nobody knows where, leaving his bride in sorrow and anguish. He falls
into the hands of Venus, who holds court in the Hoerselberg near
Eisenach, and Tannhaeuser, at the opening of the first scene, has
already passed a whole year with her. At length he has grown tired of
sensual love and pleasure, and notwithstanding Venus' allurements he
leaves her, vowing never to return to the goddess, but to expiate his
sins by a holy life. He returns to the charming vale behind the
Wartburg, he hear