Text in italics is surrounded by underscores (_italics_).

[Illustration: THE MARKET PLACE IN NUREMBURG]

Everychild's Series

GREAT OPERA STORIES

Taken from Original Sources in Old German

by

MILLICENT S. BENDER

Illustrated

New York The Macmillan Company 1935

All rights reserved

COPYRIGHT, 1912, By the Macmillan Company.

Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1912. Reprinted March, 1913; June, 1915; January, September, 1916; November, 1917 July, 1931; November, 1935.

Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS

PAGE

CHILDREN OF KINGS 1

HAENSEL AND GRETEL 35

THE MASTER SINGERS 57

LOHENGRIN, THE KNIGHT OF THE SWAN 101

THE FLYING DUTCHMAN 137

TANNHAEUSER, THE MINSTREL KNIGHT 156

GREAT OPERA STORIES

[Illustration]

CHILDREN OF KINGS

I

Once upon a time, in a lonely glade between high mountains far, far above the World of Men, there stood a hut. It was a miserable, tumbledown, little hut, and the mosses of many summers clung to its sloping roof. It had a bent stovepipe where its chimney should have been, a slanting board in place of a doorstep, and just one, poor, little, broken window.

Yet it was not its forlorn appearance alone that made the hut hide behind the shadows of the grim forest, far away from the sight of man. It had more, much more than that to be ashamed of. For a hideous Witch lived there,--and with her, a Goosegirl.

They lived alone, those two,--the Goosegirl, with the joy of youth in her heart; and the Witch, unmindful of joy or youth, thinking only of magic and evil and hate. While the Goosegirl had been growing from babyhood to girlhood, from girlhood to womanhood, dreaming and wondering and wishing,--she knew not what,--the Witch had been trying to make her as ugly and as wicked as herself. But try as she would, the heart of the Goosegirl was so pure that evil could find no spot in it to lodge. As for her face, each passing year left it lovelier than the last. The sunshine was no brighter than her yellow hair, the sky no bluer than her clear blue eyes. The lone lily before the hut envied the whiteness of her skin, and the birch tree in the woods, the slenderness of her form.

Table of contents (by pages)

• 1: Great Opera Stories by Millicent Schwab Bender
• 2: The Goosegirl had lived in the wretched hut
• 3: The Goosegirl continued to stare
• 4: Tumbledown hut with its smoking chimney
• 5: The Fiddler gave her a sharp glance
• 6: Came the vision of the Goosegirl
• 7: But I felled every one with one mighty blow of my broom
• 8: The King's Son enfolded the Goosegirl in his arms
• 9: Illustration HAENSEL AND GRETEL ILong ago
• 10: Haensel had heard such stories before
• 11: They forgot their empty stomachs
• 12: Inquired Where are Haensel and Gretel
• 13: Haensel held her fast in his arms
• 14: Haensel wished to go boldly inside
• 15: Haensel and Gretel gave her one good
• 16: He became one of the Master Singers of Nuremberg
• 17: Had Magdalena seen her scarfpin
• 18: Eva and Magdalena hastened to explain
• 19: And I'm not a Master Singer yet
• 20: Only Hans Sachs and Veit Pogner
• 21: Hans Sachs appeared again at his workshop door
• 22: But little did she know Hans Sachs
• 23: What did Master Beckmesser want
• 24: Hans Sachs resumed his reading
• 25: A Beckmesser who could neither sit
• 26: Master Beckmesser has sung it incorrectly
• 27: Had once owned part of Brabant
• 28: The dark haired princess Ortrud
• 29: Named her unknown knight as her champion
• 30: The dark haired Ortrud curled her lips scornfully
• 31: Frederick of Telramund and Ortrud his wife
• 32: Ortrud would always be her friend
• 33: But when he saw the wicked Ortrud and the false Frederick
• 34: They bore the body of Frederick of Telramund on a bier
• 35: Lohengrin caught her in his arms
• 36: Even Lohengrin greeted it in sadness
• 37: Before Daland lay down to sleep
• 38: But just then Daland awoke with a start
• 39: Whir r r of those quick turning wheels
• 40: And Senta was listening so patiently
• 41: Illustration THE WARTBURG TANNHAEUSER
• 42: He had cast himself away from the Wartburg
• 43: But Tannhaeuser still remembered
• 44: Tannhaeuser listened until the end
• 45: The Landgrave watched her approach
• 46: There was a short pause while Sir Wolfram rose to his feet
• 47: Advancing solemnly toward Tannhaeuser
• 48: They passed Elizabeth and Wolfram