is heard the enticement of the Venus music.  But at the name “Elizabeth” it dies away.  The mists grow denser as the magic crew disappears, and through them is seen a light upon the Wartburg.  The tolling of bells and the songs of mourners are heard as the cortege approaches.  As Tannhaeuser dies, the pilgrims’ chorus again rises in ecstasy, closing with a mighty shout of “Hallelujah!” and the curtain falls.

LOHENGRIN.

“Lohengrin,” a romantic opera in three acts, words by the composer, was first produced at Weimar, Aug. 28, 1850, the anniversary of Goethe’s birthday, under the direction of Franz Liszt, and with the following cast of the leading parts:—­

LOHENGRIN       Herr BECK. 
TELRAMUND       Herr MILDE. 
KING            Herr HOFER. 
ELSA            Frau AGATHE. 
ORTRUD          Frauelein FASTLINGER.

“Lohengrin” was begun in Paris, and finished in Switzerland during the period in which Wagner was director of the musical society as well as of the orchestra at the city theatre of Zurich, whither he had fled to escape the penalties for taking part in the political agitations and subsequent insurrection of 1849.  Though it manifests a still further advancement in the development of his system, it was far from being composed according to the abstract rules he had laid down.  He says explicitly on this point, in his “Music of the Future:”  “The first three of these poems—­’The Flying Dutchman,’ ‘Tannhaeuser,’ and ’Lohengrin’—­were written by me, their music composed, and all (with the exception of ‘Lohengrin’) performed upon the stage, before the composition of my theoretical writings.”

The story of Lohengrin, the son of Parsifal, upon which Wagner has based his drama, is taken from many sources, the old Celtic legend of King Arthur, his knights, and the Holy Grail being mixed with the distinctively German legend of a knight who arrives in his boat drawn by a swan.  The version used by Wagner is supposed to be told by Wolfram von Eschenbach, the Minnesinger, at one of the Wartburg contests, and is in substance as follows:  Henry I., King of Germany, known as “the Fowler,” arrives at Antwerp for the purpose of raising a force to help him expel the Hungarians, who are threatening his dominions.  He finds Brabant in a condition of anarchy.  Gottfried, the young son of the late Duke, has mysteriously disappeared, and Telramund, the husband of Ortrud, daughter of the Prince of Friesland, claims the dukedom.  The claimant openly charges Elsa, sister of Gottfried, with having murdered him to obtain the sovereignty, and she is summoned before the King to submit her cause to the ordeal of battle between Telramund and any knight whom she may name.  She describes a champion whom she has seen in a vision, and conjures him to appear in her behalf.  After a triple summons by the heralds, he is seen approaching on the Scheldt, in a boat drawn by a swan.  Before the combat Lohengrin betroths himself to Elsa, naming only the condition that she shall never question him as to his name or race.  She assents, and the combat results in Telramund’s defeat and public disgrace.