er topic than the action and dialogue. It is
a relief to those listeners who go to the opera oppressed with memories
of "Salome" and "Elektra." It is not only that their ears are not so
often assaulted by rude sounds, they are frequently moved by phrases of
great and genuine beauty. Unfortunately the Straussian system of
composition demands that beauty be looked for in fragments. Continuity
of melodic flow is impossible to Strauss--a confession of his inability
either to continue Wagner's method, to improve on it, or invent
anything new in its place. The best that has been done in the Wagnerian
line belongs to Humperdinck.

[Footnote: "Der Rosenkavalier" had its first American production at the
Metropolitan Opera House, New York, on December 9, 1913, the cast being
as follows:--

Feldmarschallin Furstin Werdenberg............ Frieda Hempel
Baron Ochs auf Lerchenau...................... Otto Goritz
Octavian, genannt Quinquin.................... Margarete Ober
Herr von Faninal.............................. Hermann Weil
Sophie, seine Tochter......................... Anna Case
Jungfer Marianne Leitmetzerin................. Rita Fornia
Valzacchi, ein Intrigant...................... Albert Reiss
Annina, seine Begleiterin..................... Marie Mattfeld
Ein Polizeikommissar.......................... Carl Schlegel
Haushofmeister der Feldmarschalh'n............ Pietro Audisio
Haushofmeister bei Faninal.................... Lambert Murphy
Ein Notar..................................... Basil Ruysdael
Ein Wirt...................................... Julius Bayer
Ein Sanger.................................... Carl Jorn
Drei adelige Waisen........................... Louise Cox
Rosina Van Dyck
Sophie Braslau
Eine Modistin................................. Jeanne Maubourg
Ein Lakai..................................... Ludwig Burgstaller
Ein kleiner Neger............................. Ruth Weinstein

Conductor--Alfred Hertz]

CHAPTER XIV

"Konigskinder"

Once upon a time a witch cast a spell upon a king's daughter and held
her in servitude as a gooseherd. A prince found her in the forest and
loved her. She loved him in return, and would gladly have gone away
from her sordid surroundings with him, though she had spurned the crown
which he had offered her in exchange for her wreath of flow