The children and the older folk go to make the bon fire outside the town. Only Kunrad lingers. Diemut comes to the window to comb her hair and Kunrad inquires what he has done to deserve such treatment. " She relents, appar ently, and invites him to come up in the basket. Over joyed, he gets in and Diemut now has her revenge, for she draws it only half way up and leaves him hanging there. Then she mocks him and suggests his jumping out or climbing up on her hair. She calls her companions and they summon the others, and soon all the town is there to hoot and jeer at him. Then Kunrad invokes his master, the sorcerer, and asks for aid; and all the lights and fires upon the hearths are extinguished. The old people and the children are disconsolate but the lovers do not so much dislike the situation.
The castle custodian threatens to imprison Kunrad in the tower as soon as he can get him. Even severer threats are made. Kunrad reminds them that they brought it upon themselves and that it is for them to find the solution. Then he manages to climb upon the roof from which he delivers them an oration. He chides them for their nar row prejudices. The man whom they had driven away had not been evil but they could not see it. He had wished only to bring fame and blessing to the town. He had tried to introduce wagons with four wheels, instead of carts, and many other like improvements but they would have none of his doctrine of progressiveness. People who wished to advance with the world moved away. As for himself, he had come to finish his master's work. They distrusted him, and the woman he loved spurned him. But a woman's heart is the source of all warmth and light, he declares, and only through Diemut and her yield ing herself to him can they regain their fires.
The people cry to Diemut in her house that it is her duty to get back the fires for them. Suddenly Kunrad disappears into her room. Soon a light shines from the windows and many others in the town answer it. Then Kunrad and Diemut, in each other's arms, look out from the casement and the opera ends with a paean of joy and love.
In his operas Richard Strauss has reduced the vocal part to even greater subserviency to the dramatic action itself than did Wagner. His works are written with the voice of the singer going a way seemingly wholly inde pendent of anything in the instrumental score. Talking is approached as nearly as is possible, and of formal melo dies there is little, while set numbers are wholly wanting. The orchestra has the important part and " Feuersnot " could be given satisfactorily and with virtually as great effectiveness with the dialogue spoken as it can with it sung. Interesting moments in the score are the opening chorus for the children, in which they beg for wood for the solstice fire; the music for Diemut, when first she appears among the children; the legend sung by Tulbeck, "Als Herzog Heinrich mit dem Lowen kam " (" When great Duke Henry with the lions came ") ; the declamatory scene for Kunrad, in which he responds to the children's demands for wood for the solstice illumination; his lengthy song-speech, " Dass ich den Zauber lerne " (" That I should magic learn ") ; the Burgomaster's solo; Kunrad's " Fuersnot! Minnego bot!" (" Need of fire! Need of love! ") ; Diemut's song, " Mitsommernacht! Wonnige Wacht! " (" Midsummer Night! Time of Delight! ") which is one of the most melodious numbers in the score; Kunrad's " Hilf mir, Meister ! " (" Help me, Master! ") and the long descriptive scene which follows, which is musically directed at Munich and its treatment of both Wagner and Strauss himself. In it appear motifs from the works of Wagner and from Strauss' own opera " Guntram " which are heard in both voice and orchestra when Kunrad speaks of the spirits that once dwelt in the house but which were driven forth through lack of appreciation. Another striking number is the elab orate symphonic orchestral poem, which pictures the yield ing of Diemut to Kunrad and the return of light to the town, a number which has found its way into the concert repertory and has been generally admired.