Act III. In the gloomy dungeon in which _Guntram_ is awaiting his

punishment, the young hero has plenty of leisure to meditate on his deeds and their motives. The Band of the Good has sent _Friedhold_ to him in order that he may ask of him an account of his sinful deed. For such an act is considered as murder in every case. _Guntram_ feels that he is not guilty in the opinion of the Band but is self-convicted in the opinion of the highest humanity. For he cannot conceal from himself that the passionate love for _Freihild_, wife of the _Duke_, which burns in his heart, led him to his deed. Therefore, he can certainly reject the reproach of the Band, but he charges himself with renunciation as expiation for his deed. He has taught himself that true freedom cannot be attained unless it is acquired by one's own power and victory over one's self. So the Band of the Good is caught in an error and _Guntram_ renounces his connection with them. But _Freihild_, who has succeeded to the duchy since the _Old Duke_ has fallen on the field, he refers to the godly message which calls her to promote the happiness of the people. In this noble task she will find indemnification for the personal sacrifice of her lost love. The singer withdraws thence into solitude.

SALOME

Opera in one act by Richard Strauss; words after Oscar Wilde's poem of the same title, translated into German by Hedwig Lachmann. Produced at the Court Opera, Dresden, December 9, 1905. Metropolitan Opera House, New York, 1907, with Olive Fremstad; Manhattan Opera House, New York, with Mary Garden.

CHARACTERS

HEROD ANTIPAS, Tetrarch of Judea _Tenor_ HERODIAS, wife of Herod _Mezzo-Soprano_ SALOME, daughter of Herodias _Soprano_ JOKANAAN (John the Baptist) _Baritone_ NARRABOTH, a young Syrian, Captain of the Guard _Tenor_ A PAGE _Alto_

A young Roman, the executioner, five Jews, two Nazarenes, two soldiers, a Cappadocian and a slave.

_Time_--About 30 A.D.

_Place_--The great terrace in the palace of Herod at Tiberias, Galilee, the capital of his kingdom.

On the great terrace of _Herod's_ palace, off the banquet hall, is his body-guard. The ardent looks of the young captain, _Narraboth_, a Syrian, are directed toward the banquet hall where _Salome_ is seated. In vain the _Page_, who is aware of the neurotic taint in the woman, warns him. The young captain is consumed with ardent desires.

The night is sultry. The soldiers' talk is interrupted by the sounds from the hall. Suddenly there is heard a loud and deep voice, as from a tomb. Dread seizes even upon the rough soldiers. He who calls is a madman according to some, a prophet according to others, in either case, a man of indomitable courage who with terrifying directness of speech brings the ruling powers face to face with their sins and bids them repent. This is _Jokanaan_. His voice sounds so reverberant because it issues from the gloomy cistern in which he is held a captive.

Suddenly _Salome_, in great commotion, steps out on the terrace. The greedy looks with which the _Herod_, her stepfather, has regarded her, as well as the talk and noisy disputes of the gluttons and degenerates within have driven her out. In her stirs the sinful blood of her mother, who, in order that she might marry _Herod_, slew her husband. Depraved surroundings, a court at which the satiating of all desires is the main theme of the day, have poisoned her thoughts. She seeks new pleasures, as yet untasted enjoyments. Now, as she hears the voice of the _Prophet_, there arises in her the lust to see this man, whom she has heard her mother curse, because he has stigmatized her shame, and whom she knows the Tetrarch fears, although a captive. What she desires is strictly forbidden, but _Narraboth_ cannot resist her blandishments. The strange, gloomy figure of the _Jokanaan_, fantastically noble in the rags of his captivity, stirs _Salome's_ morbid desires. Her abandoned arts are brought into full play in her efforts to tempt him, but with the sole result that he bids her do penance. This but adds fuel to the flame. When _Narraboth_, in despair over her actions, kills himself on his own sword, she does not so much as notice it. Appalled by the wickedness of the young woman, the _Prophet_ warns her to seek for the only one in whom she can find redemption, the Man of Galilee. But realizing that his words fall on deaf ears, he curses her, and retreats into his cistern.

_Herod_, _Herodias_, and their suite come out on the terrace. _Herod_ is suffering under the weight of his crimes, but the infamous _Herodias_ is as cold as a serpent. _Herod's_ sinful desire for his stepdaughter is the only thing that can stir his blood. But _Salome_ is weary and indifferent; _Herodias_ full of bitter scorn for him and for her daughter. Against the _Prophet_, whose voice terrifies the abandoned gatherings at table, her hatred is fierce. But _Herod_ stands in mysterious awe of the _Prophet_. It is almost because of his dread of the future, which _Jokanaan_ proclaims so terribly, that _Herod_ asks as a diversion for _Salome's_ dance in order that life may flow warm again in his chilled veins. _Salome_ demurs, until he swears that he will grant any request she may make of him. She then executes the "Dance of the Seven Veils," casting one veil after another from her. _Herod_ asks what her reward shall be. In part prompted by _Herodias_, but also by her own mad desire to have vengeance for her rejected passion, she demands the head of the _Prophet_. _Herod_ offers her everything else he can name that is most precious, but _Salome_ refuses to release him from his promise. The executioner descends into the cistern. _Jokanaan_ is slain and his severed head presented to _Salome_ upon a silver charger. Alive he refused her his lips. Now, in a frenzy of lust, she presses hers upon them. Even _Herod_ shudders, and turns from her revolted. "Kill that woman!" he commands his guards, who crush her under their shields.

Regarding the score of "Salome," Strauss himself remarked that he had paid no consideration whatever to the singers. There is a passage for quarrelling Jews that is amusing; and, for a brief spell, in the passage in which _Salome_ gives vent to her lust for _Jokanaan_, the music is molten fire. But considered as a whole, the singers are like actors, who intone instead of speaking. Whatever the drama suggests, whatever is said or done upon the stage--a word, a look, a gesture--is minutely and realistically set forth in the orchestra, which should consist of a hundred and twelve pieces. The real musical climax is "The Dance of the Seven Veils," a superb orchestral composition.

Strauss calls the work a drama. As many as forty motifs have been enumerated in it. But they lack the compact, pregnant qualities of the motifs in the Wagner music-dramas which are so individual, so melodically eloquent that their significance is readily recognized not only when they are first heard, but also when they recur. Nevertheless, the "Salome" of Richard Strauss is an effective work--so effective in the setting forth of its offensive theme that it was banished from the Metropolitan Opera House, although Olive Fremstad lavished her art upon the title rôle; nor have the personal fascination and histrionic gifts of Mary Garden been able to keep it alive.

At the Metropolitan Opera House, then under the direction of Heinrich Conried, it was heard at a full-dress rehearsal, which I attended, and at one performance. It was then withdrawn, practically on command of the board of directors of the opera company, although the initial impulse is said to have come from a woman who sensed the brutality of the work under its mask of "culture."

ELEKTRA

Opera in one act by Richard Strauss; words by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Produced: Dresden, January 25, 1909. Manhattan Opera House, New York, in a French version by Henry Gauthier-Villars, and with Mazarin as _Elektra_.

CHARACTERS

CLYTEMNESTRA, wife of _Aegisthus_ _Mezzo-Soprano_ ELEKTRA } her daughters by the { _Soprano_ CHRYSOTHEMIS } murdered king Agamemnon { _Soprano_ AEGISTHUS _Tenor_ ORESTES _Baritone_

Preceptor of _Orestes_, a confidant, a train bearer, an overseer of servants, five serving women, other servants, both men and women, old and young.

_Time_--Antiquity.

_Place_--Mycenae.

Storck, in his _Opera Book_, has this to say of Von Hofmannsthal's libretto: "The powerful subject of the ancient myth is here dragged down from the lofty realm of tragedy, to which Sophocles raised it, to that of the pathologically perverse. With a gloomy logic the strain of blood-madness and unbridled lust is exploited by the poet so that the overwhelming effect of its consequences becomes comprehensible. None the less, there is the fact, of no little importance, that through its treatment from this point of view, a classical work has been dragged from its pedestal."

The inner court of the palace in Mycenae is the scene of the drama. Since _Clytemnestra_, in league with her paramour, _Aegisthus_, has compassed the murder of her husband, _Agamemnon_, her daughter _Elektra_ lives only with the thought of vengeance. She exists like a wild beast, banished from the society of human beings, a butt of ridicule to the servants, a horror to all, only desirous of the blood of her mother and _Aegisthus_ in atonement for that of her father. The murderers too have no rest. Fear haunts them.

_Elektra's_ sister, _Chrysothemis_, is entirely unlike her. She craves marriage. But it is in a disordered way that her desire for husband and child is expressed. _Clytemnestra_ also is morbidly ill. Deeply she deplores her misdeed, but for this very reason has completely surrendered herself to the unworthy _Aegisthus_. So frightfully do her dreams torment her that she even comes to seek help from the hated Elektra in her hovel in the inner court. It is the latter's first triumph in all her years of suffering. But it is short-lived, for _Clytemnestra_ mocks her with the news that _Orestes_ has died in a distant land. A terrible blow this for _Elektra_, who had hoped that _Orestes_ would return and wreak vengeance on the queen and _Aegisthus_. Now the daughters must be the instruments of vengeance. And as _Chrysothemis_, shocked, recoils from the task, _Elektra_ determines to complete it alone. She digs up in the courtyard the very axe with which her father was slain and which she had buried in order to give it to her brother on his return.

But the message regarding the death of _Orestes_ was false. It was disseminated by her brother in order to allay the fears of the murderers of his father and put them off their guard. The stranger, who now enters the court, and at first cannot believe that the half-demented woman in rags is his sister, finally is recognized by her as _Orestes_, and receives from her the axe. He enters the palace, slays _Clytemnestra_ and, upon the return of _Aegisthus_, pursues him from room to room and kills him. _Elektra_, her thirst for vengeance satisfied, under the spell of a blood-madness, dances, beginning weirdly, increasing to frenzy, and ending in her collapse, dead, upon the ground, where, since her father's death, she had grovelled waiting for the avenger.

As in "Salome," so in "Elektra" there is a weft and woof of leading motifs which, lacking the compactness, firmness, and unmistakable _raisons d'être_ of the leading motives in the Wagner music-dramas, crawl, twist, and wind themselves in spineless convolutions about the characters and the action of the piece. In "Salome" the score worked up to one set climax, the "Dance of the Seven Veils." In "Elektra" there also is a set composition. It is a summing up of emotions, in one eloquent burst of song, which occurs when _Elektra_ recognizes _Orestes_. It may be because it came in the midst of so much cacophony that its effect was enhanced. But at the production of the work in the Manhattan Opera House, it seemed to me not only one of Strauss's most spontaneous lyrical outgivings, but also one of the most beautiful I had ever heard. Several times every year since then, I have been impelled to go to the pianoforte and play it over, although forced to the unsatisfactory makeshift of playing-in the voice part with what already was a pianoforte transcription of the orchestral accompaniment.

Mme. Schumann-Heink, the _Clytemnestra_ of the original production in Dresden, said: "I will never sing the rôle again. It was frightful. We were a set of mad women.... There is nothing beyond 'Elektra.' We have lived and reached the furthest boundary in dramatic writing for the voice with Wagner. But Richard Strauss goes beyond him. His singing voices are lost. We have come to a full stop. I believe Strauss himself sees it."--And, indeed, in his next opera, "Der Rosenkavalier," the composer shows far more consideration for the voice, and has produced a score in which the melodious elements are many.

DER ROSENKAVALIER

THE KNIGHT OF THE ROSE

Opera in three acts by Richard Strauss; words by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Produced: Royal Opera House, Dresden, January 26, 1911; Covent Garden, London, January 1, 1913; Metropolitan Opera House, New York, by Gatti-Casazza, December 9, 1913, with Hempel (_Princess Werdenberg_), Ober (_Octavian_), Anna Case (_Sophie_), Fornia (_Marianne_), Mattfeld (_Annina_), Goritz (_Lerchenan_), Weil (_Faninal_), and Reiss (_Valzacchi_).

CHARACTERS

BARON OCHS of Lerchenan _Bass_ VON FANINAL, a wealthy parvenu, recently ennobled _Baritone_ VALZACCHI, an intriguer _Tenor_ OCTAVIAN, Count Rofrano, known as "Quin-Quin" _Mezzo-Soprano_ PRINCESS VON WERDENBERG _Soprano_ SOPHIE, daughter of _Faninal_ _Soprano_ MARIANNE, duenna of _Sophie_ _Soprano_ ANNINA, companion of _Valzacchi_ _Alto_

A singer (_tenor_), a flutist, a notary, commissary of police, four lackeys of _Faninal_, a master of ceremonies, an innkeeper, a milliner, a noble widow and three noble orphans, a hairdresser and his assistants, four waiters, musicians, guests, two watchmen, kitchen maids and several apparitions.

_Time_--Eighteenth century during the reign of Maria Theresa.

_Place_--Vienna.

With the exception of Humperdinck's "Hänsel und Gretel," "Der Rosenkavalier," by Richard Strauss, is the only opera that has come out of Germany since the death of Wagner, which has appeared to secure a definite hold upon the repertoire. Up to the season of 1917-18, when it was taken out of the repertoire on account of the war in Europe, it had been given twenty-two times at the Metropolitan Opera House, since its production there late in 1913.

The work is called a "comedy for music," which is mentioned here simply as a fact, since it makes not the slightest difference to the public what the composer of an opera chooses to call it, the proof of an opera being in the hearing just as the proof of a pudding always is in the eating. So far it is the one opera by Richard Strauss which, after being heralded as a sensation, has not disappeared through indifference.

To those who know both works, the libretto of "Der Rosenkavalier" which has been violently attacked, goes no further in suggestiveness than that of "Le Nozze di Figaro." But it is very long, and unquestionably the opera would gain by condensation, although the score is a treasure house of orchestration, a virtuosity in the choice of instruments and manner of using them which amounts to inspiration. An examination of the full orchestral score shows that 114 instruments are required, seventeen of them for an orchestra on the stage. The composer demands for his main orchestra 32 violins, 12 violas, 10 violoncellos, 8 double basses, 3 flutes, 3 oboes, 2 clarinets, 1 bass clarinet, 3 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, 1 tuba, 2 harps, glockenspiel, triangle, bell, castanets, tympani, side and bass drums, cymbals, celeste, and rattle. A small orchestra for the stage also requires 1 oboe, 1 flute, 2 clarinets, 2 horns, 2 bassoons, 1 trumpet, 1 drum, harmonium, piano, and string quintet.

"Der Rosenkavalier" also contains melodious phrases in number and variety, which rarely permit the bearer's interest to flag. Waltz themes abound. They are in the manner of Johann Strauss and Lanner. It is true that these composers flourished much later than the rococo period in which the opera is laid, but just as it makes no difference what a composer calls an opera, so it makes no difference whether he indulges in anachronisms or not. Gavottes, etc., would have been more in keeping with the period, but the waltz themes served Strauss's purpose far better and are introduced with infinite charm. They give the work that subtle thing called atmosphere, and play their part in making passages, like the finale to the second act, the most significant music for the stage of opera that has been penned in the composer's country since Wagner. They also abound in the scene between _Octavian_ and _Lerchenan_ in the third act.