be expected back with the first band when he had set out with the second, and why Elisabeth could not at least exercise a little patience and wait for the second.  The point is that she does not wait, but goes home to die, and, dying, is supposed—­as Wolfram explicitly states—­to redeem a sinner who is already redeemed.  Her sacrifice is an act of suicidal insanity due to her lacking the common sense to reflect that Tannhaeuser might arrive with the second contingent; it is foolish and superfluous.

This is the sole flaw in a very fine opera book. Tannhaeuser is the noblest expression in music of the glory and worth of human life.  An assertion of the glory and worth of human life is bound to be, as Tannhaeuser is, tragic; life and the value of life can only be realized when we see life in conflict with death and overcome by death.  All the great tragedies are assertions of the joy of living, in the deepest sense of the phrase—­in the sense in which Samson Agonistes or Handel’s Samson are such assertions.  Tannhaeuser suffers defeat and is glorious, like Samson in his overthrow.  Even Elisabeth, a trifle mawkish though she may be, has loved life, and only at the finish, when fate (or, as she would say, heaven) decides against her, does she resign herself and renounce what cannot be hers.  This is the first of Wagner’s operas the plot of which is virtually all his own; for precisely the combination of the legend of Tannhaeuser with the Tournament of Song makes it what it is and was—­Wagner’s invention.  All the stale old devices of explanatory asides are gone, as are the convenient goings-off and comings-on of the dramatis personae at the sweet will of the composer who wants here a duet and a trio there.  The drama is self-explanatory—­the librettist does not shove on a character to explain it for him; as it unfolds, the musician is given ample opportunities for all the songs or concerted pieces that the heart of composer could long for—­he has not by main force and at all costs (in the way of unreasonableness) to drive opportunities into the drama.

III

In 1842 Wagner finished first Rienzi and then the Dutchman; in April of 1845, that is to say three years later, Tannhaeuser was complete, and in October of that year it was produced at Dresden.  Its success or non-success with the public and those strange animals the critics does not greatly concern us to-day.  Wagner’s own account of the proceedings is not very trustworthy.  The opera was cut and doctored to suit the singers—­notably Tichatscheck; the first performance seems to have missed fire, and at the second the house was empty; at the third it was full; and, but for the intrigues of some of the musicians and scribblers, and the insanity of the management, it appears probable—­one has a right to use so moderate a word—­that before long it might have won in Dresden the success