Walter Meyer wrote:

>There's really no love scene as we usually understand it in *Tannhaeuser*.
>Or *Rheingold* or *Moses and Aron*.  I don't remember, but I don't think
>there's one in *Wozzeck* either.

It's not clear to me when a scene becomes a 'love scene'.  Presumably it
is more than a scene involving a pair of lovers or would-be lovers.  Are
other people allowed to be present? What if they are conversing themselves
with the lovers? Does one party have to declare their love or make physical
advances? What if the other party is indifferent to them, or worse?
Unrequited love is the stuff of opera too.

Another nomination:  Dialogues des Carmelites.  As with _Moses & Aron_,
religion fills the gap here.  As for _Wozzeck_, the murder scene is all
the more disturbing because it begins as if it were a love scene.  There
is also the scene between Marie and the Drum Major which ends the first
act.

Virginia Knight
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Personal homepage: http://www.ilrt.bris.ac.uk/~ggvhk/virginia.html