Perfall, the manager! What could he wish to say?
After many bowings and scrapings, with his hand on his heart he spoke, he implored "the indulgence of the select public before whom he had the honour.... In spite of the best will in the world, of long conscientious efforts ... insurmountable difficulties of scenery ... effects impossible to realise.... It had been necessary to give up the idea of attaining perfection, and to be content with what could be done, regret, chagrin ... but there is no flying without wings....
The presence of the king kept back all marked demonstration: yet even that could not stifle the indignant murmur that followed Perfall, when, after fresh cringings, he disappeared behind the curtain.
Richter struck angrily upon his desk, as if he were hitting the back of the traitor. The low note began its muffled vibration, the prelude commenced: but we no longer listened in the religious absorption of the other day, we were afraid to see the curtain drawn aside ... and at that moment it was drawn.
One was disappointed at the very first glance; no sign of the green shadows, of the humid and troubled depths which we had expected to see, only very dry rocks of moulded paper, resting without mystery, upon the boards of the stage. A frightful oil lamp, suspended from the highest moulding was supposed to represent "the gold of the Rhine." It only recalled the lantern which is placed, by night, at the top of a street obstruction.... The crystalline voice unrolled its clear melody, but at this point, a mannikin with dangling arms and hair hanging before its face, intended for an undine, was precipitated, head first, from above and, half way down, remained suspended, balancing from the end of a string. At the moment when the other voices were heard, other images of the same nature fell from above and oscillated in the deplorable attitudes of the drowned. Soon after, the mannikins were drawn back, and the true singers, standing upon supports, half concealed by the jutting out of the paper rocks, appeared and agitated their arms to represent swimming. Then they went away, and the puppet Rhine maidens returned and capered desperately about the smoking lamp.
What absurdity! They would not dare to present anything so bad at the Punch and Judy show of the Champs-Elysées.
After the scene-shifting, of an unbelievable awkwardness, a very little Walhalla, like a castle of cards, was to be seen upon a miniature mountain. Wotan had the appearance of a wayfarer who sleeps in the open air. As soon as he began to sing however, the magnificent voice of Betz made one willing to forget all else, one no longer saw the ridiculous landscape, and as the mechanical difficulties were over for the time, one could listen to the scenes that followed up to the moment of the descent to the Nibelheim.
At that point the management took its revenge.
A frightful and continuous hissing suddenly drowned both the voices and the orchestra. What in the world could it be? At first one was terrified, but heavy clouds of white vapour soon enveloped the scene and all was explained: the famous machines! A red Bengal fire, lighted too late, coloured those clouds, which were supposed to escape from the subterranean kingdom of the Nibelungen forgers.
When, a little later, Alberich should have donned the magic helmet in order to take the form of the dragon, he very simply walked off at the wings and the dragon entered by the same path, then the dragon went back, and the man returned.