“You must wait for our grand operas till the review is over, when the court comes back from Potsdam, and the orchestra is in full force,” was the unanimous answer of every one to my complaint against the weak and languid performance of “Der Freischutz:” — “they do some of Gluck's very magnificently; and Spontini's ‘La Vestale’ and ‘Fernand Cortez.’” “And which of Marschner's?” — “None.” “And Weber's ‘Euryanthe?’” — “Very rarely:” and out came the hundredth tale of cabal and court predilection. I might as well, from all I heard, in indulgence of my intense curiosity as to antique German Opera, have bespoken “La Costanza e Fortezza,” — the composition by Fux, performed in the open air at Prague one hundred and twenty years ago, on the coronation of Charles VII. as King of Bohemia; which Quantz described to Dr. Burney as being in the old church style, coarse and dry, but at the same time “grand,” and as having “a better effect perhaps with so immense a band, and in such an immense space, than could have been produced by more delicate compositions.”

But the visitor to Berlin, however rational in his operatic expectations, would stand but a poor chance of his wishes being fulfilled.