But Senta has known from the very beginning who this dark wooer was, and is so intent upon saving him from his fate that she fears no danger for herself.  Passionately she clings to him, protesting her affection, and when he looses her, and Erik would fain detain her by force, she struggles frantically to follow him.

Erik’s cry brings Daland, Mary, and the Chorus to the rescue, and they too strive to restrain Senta, when they hear the stranger proclaim from the deck of his phantom ship that he is the Scourge of the Sea,—­the Flying Dutchman.  The vessel sails away from the harbour.  Senta escapes from her friends, and rushes to a projecting cliff, whence she casts herself recklessly into the seething waves, intent only upon showing her love and saving him, and thereby proving herself faithful unto death:—­

   ’Praise thou thine angel for what he saith;
    Here stand I, faithful, yea, till death!’

As Senta sinks beneath the waves the phantom vessel vanishes also, and as the storm abates and the rosy evening clouds appear in the west the transfigured forms of Senta and the Flying Dutchman hover for a moment over the wreck, and, rising slowly, float upward and out of sight, embracing each other, for her faithful love has indeed accomplished his salvation, and his spirit, may now be at rest.

[Illustration:  TANNHAeUSER and Venus.]

TANNHAeUSER.

In 1829, when Wagner was only sixteen years of age, he first became acquainted, through Hoffmann’s novels, with the story of the mastersingers of Nuernberg, and with the mediaeval legend of Tannhaeuser, as versified by Ludwig Tieck.  The ’mystical coquetry and frivolous catholicism’ of this modern poem repelled him, and it was not until twelve years later, when he chanced upon a popular version of the same story, that he was struck by its dramatic possibilities.  A chance mention of the Saengerkrieg of the Wartburg in this version made him trace the legend as far back as possible, and in doing so he came across an old poem of Lohengrin, and read Eschenbach’s ‘Titurel’ and ‘Parzival,’ which were to serve as basis for two other great operas.  The sketch of the opera of ‘Tannhaeuser’ was completed in 1842, at Teplitz, during an excursion in the Bohemian mountains; but the whole score was not finished until three years later.  Wagner had gone over it all so carefully that it was printed without much revision, and he had even written the piano score, which was sent to Berlin in 1845 and appeared in the same year that the opera was produced at Dresden.

Madame Schroeder-Devrient, whom Wagner had in his mind in writing the part of Venus, sang that role, but, in spite of all her talent, the first performance was not a success.  She wrote to Wagner concerning it, and said, ’You are a man of genius, but you write such eccentric stuff it is hardly possible to sing it.’  The public in general, accustomed to light operas with happy endings, was dismayed at