The second act opens in Kuno’s house, and shows us Agatha melancholy with forebodings of coming evil.  A hermit whom she has met in the woods has warned her of danger, and given her a wreath of magic roses to ward it off.  An ancestral portrait falling from the walls also disturbs her; and at last the appearance of the melancholy Max confirms her belief that trouble is in store for her.  Max himself is no less concerned.  All sorts of strange sounds have troubled him, and his slumbers have been invaded with apparitions.  Nevertheless, he goes to the Wolf’s Glen; and though spectres, skeletons, and various grotesque animals terrify him, and his mother’s spirit appears and warns him away, he overcomes his fright and appears with Caspar at the place of incantation.  Zamiel is summoned, and seven bullets are cast, six of which are to be directed by Max himself in the forthcoming match, while the seventh will be at the disposal of the demon.  Little dreaming the fate which hangs upon the seventh, Caspar offers no objections.

The third act opens, like the last, in Kuno’s house, and discovers Agatha preparing for her nuptials, and telling Annchen a singular dream she has had.  She had fancied herself a dove, and that Max fired at her.  As the bird fell she came to herself and saw that the dove had changed to a fierce bird of ill omen which lay dying at her feet.  The melancholy produced by the dream is still further heightened when it is found that a funeral instead of a bridal wreath has been made for her; but her heart lightens up again as she remembers the magic rose-wreath which the hermit had enjoined her to wear on her wedding day.  At last the eventful day of trial comes, and the Prince and all his courtiers assemble to witness the match.  Max makes six shots in succession which go home to the mark.  At the Prince’s command he fires the seventh, Zamiel’s bullet, at a dove flying past.  As he fires, Agatha appears to him as the dove, and he fancies he has slain her.  The wreath protects her, however, and Zamiel directs the bullet to Caspar’s heart.  The demon claims his victim, and Max his bride, amid general rejoicing.

The overture, which is one of the most favorite numbers of its class in the concert-room as well as in the opera-house, is a masterpiece of brilliant and descriptive instrumentation, and furnishes us with a key to the whole story in its announcement of the leading themes.  It opens with an adagio horn passage of great beauty, giving us the groundwork of the entire action; and then follow motives from Max’s grand scena in the first act, the Incantation music, Agatha’s moonlight scene, and other episodes connected with the action of Max and Caspar.  Indeed, the frequent and expressive use of the Leit motif all through the work seem to entitle Weber to the credit of its invention.