barbarian regal hand, never sparkles; he is altogether lacking in
vivacity, elasticity; he had no gift for gracious or piquant melody. Of
the operas of Marschner much the same must be said; in them we find the
tricks of the Romantics without the best Romantics' sense of beauty, all
the horrors of Weber without Weber's passion. Black woods, supernatural
fireworks by night, enchantments, vampires, guns that went off by
themselves--all this jugglery was fast being done to death, and what at
first had been a nerve-shaking novelty was becoming a mere tedium. In
opera _The Castle of Otranto_ was played out. Into this region of
inspissated gloom Richard burst with _Rienzi_, the brilliant, the
fearless, the tragic hero; all was blazing light and colour; it
sparkled; if the champagne of it was of an inferior quality--often,
indeed, poor goose-berry--yet it bubbled and frothed gaily. Besides,
there were great sweeping tunes--such as the hackneyed prayer--and
plenty of really dainty, if very Weberesque, melodies. All that
Meyerbeer had to teach was there, and the stolid Dresdener gazed with
delight on the brilliance of the latest Parisian musical fashions. So
Wagner gained his first success, and deserved it. It was not the Paris
success he had dreamed of a few years before, when fame, money and all
worldly things desirable were to be his. But it meant bread-and-butter
without drudging for the publishers or the press; it meant the means of
living while he wrote masterpieces which were to set half the world
against him and eventually make him immeasurably the greatest musical
figure of his time. He was appointed Court kapellmeister, and there he
remained until 1849. Before proceeding to this next period of seven
years we must consider _The Flying Dutchman_.

This is his first music drama. He called it a romantic opera; but here
for the first time the drama grows out of an idea and the music out of
the drama. The thing suggested itself to him during that stormy trip to