s pent-up enthusiasm at the end of the act, as
has been abundantly proved at the Metropolitan Opera House. A curious
episode may be noted sometimes. As soon as the singing has ceased and
the curtain begins to descend, a number of people begin to applaud.
But the full-blooded Wagnerites wait until the last chord of the
orchestra has died away before they join in. The volume of applause is
then suddenly multiplied three or four times, to the bewilderment of
novices, who do not understand what it all means. It simply means that
the concluding strains of Wagner's acts, are usually among the most
beautiful measures in the whole opera, which it is a pity and a shame
to mar by premature applause.

I have often wondered why people, who put on their overcoats during
the final measures, are not ashamed thus to advertise their utter lack
of artistic sensibility and indifference to other people's feelings.
Nor can one wonder, in view of such facts, that the late King of
Bavaria preferred to have opera given when no other spectator was in
the house, or that the present Emperor of Germany is beginning to
follow his example.

Wagner does not merely ask his interpreters to scorn the usual methods
of securing cheap applause, but he himself avoids them in his
compositions with a heroic conscientiousness. There is a story of a
well-known English conductor who objected to produce a piece by a
noted German composer because it ended _pianissimo_. He was afraid
that it would not be applauded if it did not end loudly. Now the
finales of Italian operas are habitually constructed on this method.
The chorus is brought in at the end, whether the situation calls for
it or not, and made to sing as loudly as possible. This stirs up the
audience to equally loud applause, and all ends well.

How differently Wagner goes to work! In "Siegfried," for instance,
there is no chorus at all. The first act ends with _Siegfried's_
cleaving of the anvil with the sword which he has just forged before
the eyes of the audience; and the third ends with the love duo. In
these cases there are only two persons on the stage; and at the end of
the second act _Siegfried_ is _entirely alone_, and the curtain falls
as he mutely follows the bird to the fire-girdled rock on which
_Bruennhilde_ lies asleep, amid the intoxicating and promising strains
of the orchestra. The ending of "Die Walkuere" is equally quiet and
poetic. _Wotan_ has placed poor _Bruennhilde_ on a mound o