This description of the poetical contents of the overture to “Tannhauser” applies to the ordinary form of the introduction to the opera which was used (and still is in many cases) until Wagner revised the opera for performance in Paris in 1861.  The traditions of French opera called for a ballet in the third act.  Wagner was willing to yield to the desire for a ballet, but he could not place it where the habits of the opera-going public demanded it.  Instead, he remodelled the overture and, sacrificing the coda which brought back a return of the canticle of the pilgrims, he lengthened the middle portion to fit an extended choreographic scene, and with it led into the opera without a break.  The neglect to provide a ballet in the usual place led to a tremendous disturbance in which the Jockey Club took the lead.  Wagner’s purpose in the extended portion of the overture now called the “Bacchanale” may be read in his stage-directions for the scene.

The scene represents the interior of the Venusberg (Horselberg), in the neighborhood of Eisenach.  A large cave seems to extend to an invisible distance at a turn to the right.  From a cleft through which the pale light of day penetrates, a green waterfall tumbles foaming over rocks the entire length of the cave.  From the basin which receives the water, a brook flows toward the background, where it spreads out into a lake, in which naiads are seen bathing and on the banks of which sirens are reclining.  On both sides of the grotto are rocky projections of irregular form, overgrown with singular, coral-like trophical plants.  Before an opening extending upward on the left, from which a rosy twilight enters, Venus lies upon a rich couch; before her, his head upon her lap, his harp by his side, half kneeling, reclines Tannhauser.  Surrounding the couch in fascinating embrace are the Three Graces; beside and behind the couch innumerable sleeping amorettes, in attitudes of wild disorder, like children who had fallen asleep wearied with the exertions of a struggle.  The entire foreground is illumined by a magical, ruddy light shining upward from below, through which the emerald green of the waterfall, with its white foam, penetrates.  The distant background, with the shores of the lake, seems transfigured by a sort of moonlight.  When the curtain rises, youths, reclining on the rocky projections, answering the beckonings of the nymphs, hurry down to them; beside the basin of the waterfall the nymphs have begun the dance designed to lure the youths to them.  They pair off; flight and chase enliven the dance.

From the distant background a procession of bacchantes approach, rushing through the rows of the loving couples and stimulating them to wilder pleasures.  With gestures of enthusiastic intoxication they tempt the lovers to growing recklessness.  Satyrs and fauns have appeared from the cleft of the rocks and, dancing the while, force their way between the bacchantes and lovers, increasing the disorder by chasing the