it draws near, then swells into a mighty outpour and passes, finally, away. Evenfall; last echo of the chant. As night breaks, magic sights and sounds appear, the whirlings of a fearsomely voluptuous dance are seen:—
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These are the Venusberg's seductive spells that show themselves at dead of night to those whose breasts are fired by daring of the senses. Attracted by the tempting show, a shapely human form draws nigh; 'tis Tannhäuser, love's minstrel. He sounds his jubilant song of love
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in joyous challenge, as though to force the wanton witchery to do his bidding. Wild cries of riot answer him; the rosy cloud grows denser round him; entrancing perfumes hem him in and steal away his senses. In the most seductive of half-lights his wonder-seeing eye beholds a female form indicible; he hears a voice that sweetly murmurs out the siren call, which promises contentment of the darer's wildest wishes:—
[Musical excerpt]
Venus herself it is, this woman who appears to him. Then the heart and senses burn within him; a fierce, devouring passion fires the blood in all his veins; with irresistible constraint it thrusts him nearer; before the goddess's self he steps with that canticle of love triumphant, and now he sings it in ecstatic praise of her. As though at wizard spell of his, the wonders of the Venusberg unroll their brightest fill before him; tumultuous shouts and savage cries of joy mount up on every hand; in drunken glee bacchantes drive their raging dance and drag Tanhäuser to the warm caresses of love's goddess, who throws her glowing arms around the mortal, drowned with bliss, and bears him where no step dare tread, to the realm of Being-no-more.
A scurry, like the sound of the wild hunt, and speedily the storm is laid. Merely a wanton whir still pulses in the breeze, a wave of weird voluptuousness, like the sensuous breath of unblest love, still soughs above the spot where impious charms had shed their raptures and over which the night now broods once more. But dawn begins to break; already from afar is heard again the pilgrims' chant. As this chant draws closer and closer, as the day drives farther back the night, that whir and soughing of the air—which had erewhile sounded like the eerie cry of souls condemned—now rises to ever gladder waves, so that when the sun ascends at last in splendor and the pilgrims' chant proclaims in ecstasy to all the world, to all that live and move thereon, salvation won, this wave itself swells out the tidings of sublimest joy. 'Tis the carol of the Venusberg itself redeemed from curse of impiousness, this cry we hear amid the hymn of God. So wells and leaps each pulse of life in chorus of redemption, and both dissevered elements, both soul and senses, God and nature, unite in the atoning kiss of hallowed love.
This description of the poetical contents of the overture to "Tannhäuser" applies to the ordinary form of the introduction to the opera which was used (and still is in many cases) until Wagner revised the opera for performance in Paris in 1861. The traditions of French opera called for a ballet in the third act. Wagner was willing to yield to the desire for a ballet, but he could not place it where the habits of the opera-going public demanded it. Instead, he remodelled the overture and, sacrificing the coda which brought back a return of the canticle of the pilgrims, he lengthened the middle portion to fit an extended choreographic scene, and with it led into the opera without a break. The neglect to provide a ballet in the usual place led to a tremendous disturbance in which the Jockey Club took the lead. Wagner's purpose in the extended portion of the overture now called the "Bacchanale" may be read in his stage-directions for the scene.
The scene represents the interior of the Venusberg (Hörselberg), in the neighborhood of Eisenach. A large cave seems to extend to an invisible distance at a turn to the right. From a cleft through which the pale light of day penetrates, a green waterfall tumbles foaming over rocks the entire length of the cave. From the basin which receives the water, a brook flows toward the background, where it spreads out into a lake, in which naiads are seen bathing and on the banks of which sirens are reclining. On both sides of the grotto are rocky projections of irregular form, overgrown with singular, coral-like trophical plants. Before an opening extending upward on the left, from which a rosy twilight enters, Venus lies upon a rich couch; before her, his head upon her lap, his harp by his side, half kneeling, reclines Tannhäuser. Surrounding the couch in fascinating embrace are the Three Graces; beside and behind the couch innumerable sleeping amorettes, in attitudes of wild disorder, like children who had fallen asleep wearied with the exertions of a struggle. The entire foreground is illumined by a magical, ruddy light shining upward from below, through which the emerald green of the waterfall, with its white foam, penetrates. The distant background, with the shores of the lake, seems transfigured by a sort of moonlight. When the curtain rises, youths, reclining on the rocky projections, answering the beckonings of the nymphs, hurry down to them; beside the basin of the waterfall the nymphs have begun the dance designed to lure the youths to them. They pair off; flight and chase enliven the dance.