In 1832 he wrote his first opera libretto, “Die Hochzeit” (“The Wedding”), the music for which he abandoned after a few numbers. In 1833 he visited his brother Albert, tenor and stage manager at the Würzburg theatre, and accepted the position of chorus master. He now had leisure to write another opera. This was “Die Feen” (“The Fairies”), founded on Gozzi’s “La Donna Serpente.” Beethoven, Weber, and Marschner were his models. The work was accepted by Ringelhardt, of the Leipsic Theatre, but not produced. It was resurrected, however, in 1891, and was performed ten times in Germany. In 1834, Wagner heard Wilhelmina Schroeder-Devrient sing in Bellini’s “Montecchi e Capuletti,” and her power as an actress seems to have set his mind to work on the possibility of an intimate union of music with acting. A performance of “Massaniello,” with its quick succession of incidents, completed the formulation of his idea of the road to success. As Adolphe Jullien remarks, his object was “first to imagine an animated scene of action, then to write music easy to sing, and of a nature to catch the public ear.” He now began his second opera, “Das Liebesverbot” (“The Love Veto”), based on Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure,” but so altered as to become practically a glorification of free love. [Illustration: RICHARD WAGNER’S BIRTHPLACE IN LEIPSIC. From a photograph. ] In 1834 he secured the post of musical director at the Magdeburg Theatre, and there, in the season of 1835–36, he produced his new work after only ten days’ rehearsals. The result was failure, penury, and debt. In Magdeburg he fell in love with Wilhelmina Planer, an actress, and following her to Königsberg, when she was engaged there, he became conductor at the theatre. On Nov. 24, 1834, they were married. In 1837 he read Bulwer’s “Rienzi,” and conceived the idea of using it as an opera plot. In the fall of that year he became conductor at Riga, where in 1838 he finished his libretto and began the music. He now wrote without hope of an immediate production, but with a view to future performance at some theatre of large resources. His mental eye, however, fixed itself on Paris, and his “Rienzi” began to develop along lines suggested by the popular composers of the time, Spontini, Meyerbeer, Bellini, and Rossini. In 1839 he and his wife started for Paris, by way of London, on a sailing ship. Stormy weather and the legend of “The Flying Dutchman,” told by the sailors, sowed in his mind seed which grew and subsequently blossomed. At Boulogne he became acquainted with Meyerbeer, who gave him letters to Parisians of note in music, and in September, 1839, he arrived in the French capital.