of Germany--its actualities and its mysteries, the two elements having equal potency. Into the peacefulness of the woods the French horns ("Forest horns," the Germans call them) usher us at once with the hymn which they sing after a few introductory measures. [Musical excerpt] But no sooner do we yield to the caress of this mood than there enters the supernatural element which invests the tragical portion of the story. Ominous drum beats under a dissonant tremolo of the strings and deep tones of the clarinets, a plangent declamatory phrase of the violoncellos:-- [Musical excerpt] tell us of the emotions of the hero when he feels himself deserted by Heaven; the agitated principal subject of the main body of the overture (Molto vivace):-- [Musical excerpt] proclaims his terror at the thought that he has fallen into the power of the Evil One, while the jubilant second theme:-- [Musical excerpt] gives voice to the happiness of the heroine and the triumph of love and virtue which is the outcome of the drama. The first glimpse of the opera reveals an open space in a forest and in it an inn and a target-shooting range. Max, a young assistant to the Chief Forester of a Bohemian principality, is seated at a table with a mug of beer before him, his face and attitude the picture of despondency. Hard by, huntsmen and others are grouped around Kilian, a young peasant who fires the last shot in a contest of marksmanship as the scene is disclosed. He hits off the last remaining star on the target, and is noisily acclaimed as Schützenkönig (King of the Marksmen), and celebrated in a lusty song by the spectators, who decorate the victor, and forming a procession bearing the trophies of the match, march around the glade. As they pass Max they point their fingers and jeer at him. Kilian joins in the sport until Max's fuming ill-humor can brook the humiliation no longer; he leaps up, seizes the lapel of Kilian's coat, and draws his hunting-knife. A deadly quarrel seems imminent, but is averted by the coming of Cuno, Chief Forester, and Caspar, who, like Max, is one of his assistants. To the reproaches of Cuno, who sees the mob surging around Max, Kilian explains that there was no ill-will in the mockery of him, the crowd only following an old custom which permitted the people to make sport of a contestant who failed to hit the target, and thus forfeited the right to make trial for the kingship. Cuno is amazed that a mere peasant should have defeated one of his foresters, and that one the affianced lover of his daughter, Agathe, and who, as his son-in-law, would inherit his office, provided he could prove his fitness for it by a trial shot on the wedding day. That day had been set for the morrow. How the custom of thus providing for the successorship originated, Cuno now relates in answer to the questions of one of the party. His great-grandfather, also bearer of the name Cuno, had been one of the rangers of the prince who ruled the dominion in his day.