By his side the part of Elizabeth made a sweet impression.  The youthful appearance of my niece, her tall and slender form, the decidedly German cast of her features, as well as the incomparable beauty of her voice, with its expression of almost childlike innocence, helped her to gain the hearts of the audience, even though her talent was more theatrical than dramatic.  She soon rose to fame by her impersonation of this part, and often in later years, when speaking about Tannhauser performances in which she had appeared, people used to tell me that its success had been entirely due to her.  Strange to say, in such reports people referred principally to the charm of her acting at the moment when she received the guests in the Wartburg Hall; and I used to account for this by remembering the untiring efforts with which my talented brother and I had trained her to perform this very part.  And yet it was never possible to make her understand the proper interpretation of the prayer in the third act, and I felt inclined to say, ‘O Solon!  Solon!’ as I had done in the case of Tichatschek, when after the first performance I was obliged to make a considerable cut in this solo, a proceeding which greatly reduced its importance for ever afterwards.  I heard later that Johanna, who for a short period actually had the reputation of being a great singer, had never succeeded in singing the prayer as it ought to be sung, whereas a French singer, Mademoiselle Marie Sax, achieved this in Paris to my entire satisfaction.

In the beginning of October we had so far progressed with our rehearsals that nothing stood in the way of an immediate production of Tannhauser save the scenery, which was not yet complete.  A few only of the scenes ordered from Paris had arrived, and even these had come very late.  The Wartburg Valley was beautifully effective and perfect in every detail.  The inner part of the Venusberg, however, gave me much anxiety:  the painter had not understood me; he had painted clusters of trees and statues, which reminded one of Versailles, and had placed them in a wild cave; he had evidently not known how to combine the weird with the alluring.  I had to insist on extensive alterations, and chiefly on the painting out of the shrubs and statues, all of which required time.  The grotto had to lie half hidden in a rosy cloud, through which the Wartburg Valley had to loom in the distance; this was to be done in strict obedience to my own ideas.

The greatest misfortune, however, was to befall me in the shape of the tardy delivery of the scenery for the Hall of Song.  This was due to great negligence on the part of the Paris artists; and we waited and waited until every detail of the opera had been studied and studied again ad nauseam.  Daily I went to the railway station and examined all the packages and boxes that had arrived, but there was no Hall of Song.  At last I allowed myself to be persuaded not to postpone the first performance any longer, and