The work was presented with a skill and perfection of acting never
surpassed on any stage. The actors in the two principal _roles_ played
their parts with a fire and perfection which could only have come from
genuine enthusiasm. The heroine was no longer called Ada. That name was
borne by a being who stood, strange and alone, in this restless world of
surging passions; one of those half-fabulous creatures with whom the
Indian legends people the icy summits of the Himalayas; cold and pure as
the eternal snows which glisten in those lofty regions. She appeared
only in one scene, and at the decisive moment of the drama, where she
moved through the stormy action as if upon spirits' pinions, warning and
exhorting, and Egon was quite right when he said that the words which
the poet put into her mouth were the most beautiful of the whole play.
Suddenly the pure, white light of heaven breaks through the red glow of
the drama; the scene is beautiful, but short and swift and fleeting as
the zephyr's breath. The chaste form vanished to the snowy heights of
her distant home, while here below from the river's moonlit shore rose
the song of the Hindoo maiden--Marietta's soft and swelling voice; the
cry of warning from above was lost in these sweet seductive tones. In
the last act came the tragic ending, the judgment upon the guilty pair
who suffer death in the flames.
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