performances to-day are not absolutely ridiculous, we owe this
miraculous change to Wagner alone. The notion that anything, however
slovenly and stupid, is good enough for opera was dissipated by him
alone. A book of an interesting gossipy sort might be compiled to show
the difference between opera representations before Bayreuth and those
of a post-Bayreuth date, but there is no space for any such excursions
here. At the risk of turning this sketch into something like an
analytical programme, I have concentrated my attention on his operas,
and have tried to show how the later Wagner--the Wagner of the _Ring_,
the _Mastersingers_, and of _Tristan_--grew out of the earlier Wagner,
who composed as everyone else did at the time. He created a new form of
art, and no serious composer will ever dream of going back to the
ancient form of Gluck, Mozart and Weber. From the historical point of
view, it is the creation of this new form that gives him his importance.
He did for opera what George Stevenson did for vehicular traffic. The
music drama has driven out Italian opera as completely and irrevocably
as the steam-engine drove out the stage-coach. As far as his choice of
subjects, there is no reason on earth why he should be followed. The
myth suited him because he happened to be the Wagner he was, but there
are a hundred reasons why present-day composers should leave the myth
alone. The myth gave him opportunities to display his passion, keen
sympathy with picturesque nature, tremendous sense of a remote past that
never existed; but other composers have other mental and artistic
qualities, and for them there are fresh fields to be explored. No one
need trouble about the myth unless he is prepared to show us something
finer than anything in Wagner.

I have been compelled to leave out much interesting matter--Wagner's
trips to London, his difficulties in getting his theatre built, the
financial failure of Bayreuth at first, its success afterwards. Nor can