sort of row, and have got to sing a long ballad before you finally
expire, you don't want to have to think how a man would really behave
who knew he had only got a few minutes to live and was feeling bad
about it. The chances are that he would not want to sing at all.
The woman who really loved him would not encourage him to sing. She
would want him to keep quiet while she moved herself about a bit, in
case there was anything that could be done for him.

   If a mob is climbing the stairs thirsting for your blood, you do not
want to stand upright with your arms stretched out, a good eighteen
inches from the door, while you go over at some length the varied
incidents leading up to the annoyance. If your desire were to act
naturally you would push against that door for all you were worth,
and yell for somebody to bring you a chest of drawers and a bedstead,
and things like that, to pile up against it. If you were a king, and
were giving a party, you would not want your guests to fix you up at
the other end of the room and leave you there, with nobody to talk to
but your own wife, while they turned their backs upon you, and had a
long and complicated dance all to themselves. You would want to be
in it; you would want to let them know that you were king.

   In acting, all these little points have to be considered. In opera,
everything is rightly sacrificed to musical necessity. I have seen
the young, enthusiastic opera-singer who thought that he or she could
act and sing at the same time. The experienced artist takes the
centre of the stage and husbands his resources. Whether he is
supposed to be indignant because somebody has killed his mother, or
cheerful because he is going out to fight his country's foes, who are
only waiting until he has finished singing to attack the town, he
leaves it to the composer to make clear.

   Also it was Herr Wagner's idea that the back cloth would leave the
opera-goer indifferent to the picture gallery. The castle on the
rock, accessible only by balloon, in which every window lights up
simultaneously and instantaneously, one minute after sunset, while
the full moon is rushing up the sky at the pace of a champion comet—
that wonderful sea that suddenly opens and swallows up the ship—
those snow-clad mountains, over which the shadow of the hero passes
like a threatening cloud—the grand old chateau, trembling in the
wind—what need, will ask the opera-goer of the future, of your

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