The Music Story Series

Edited by FREDERICK J. CROWEST.

The Story of Opera

The Music Story Series.

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• THE STORY OF ORATORIO. By Annie Patterson,
• B.A., Mus. Doc. With Illustrations.
• THE STORY OF NOTATION. By C. F. Abdy
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• THE STORY OF THE ORGAN. By C. F. Abdy
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• THE STORY OF THE HARP. By W. H. Grattan-Flood,
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• M.A., Mus. Bac. With Illustrations.
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• THE STORY OF MUSICAL FORM. By Clarence Lucas.

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MASCAGNI.

The Story of Opera

BY
E. Markham Lee
M.A.; Mus. Doc., Cantab.

London
The Walter Scott Publishing Co., Ltd.
New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons
1909

HistorieS of Opera are not very numerous: there have been many articles and essays in various magazines, dictionaries, and so forth which have presented more or less concise synopses of the gradual development and growth of the Operatic Art. Some of these, notably the one in Grove’s Dictionary, are excellent, but a work of such bulk is not for the everyday reader, nor, generally speaking, for the amateur. Beyond these magazine and dictionary essays the number of books—at any rate in the English language—solely on Opera is very limited, and from the nature of the case, those that exist soon get out of date.

In the present work an attempt has been made, so far as space has allowed, to give some brief account of every notable School of Opera of which anything is known. It is not claimed that the advance of the Art will not necessitate constant additions to or alterations of these pages. Even in the short space of time that has elapsed since the body of this book on Opera was written, such features as the rise in [Pg vi] popularity of Puccini’s operas, or of such modern works as Debussy’s Pelleas and Melisande, the permission of the censor to play Saint-Saëns’ Samson and Delilah on the English stage, and the slight wane in interest on the part of the English public for Wagner’s operas, have made imperative the rewriting of many paragraphs and the modification of others.

Every attempt, however, has been made to bring the book up to date, and if in the Chapters on Modern Operas and in the Appendices there may be omitted names which some may consider should have been included, it must be borne in mind that in the twentieth century opera composers spring up like mushrooms, and often disappear from public gaze with equal rapidity. Works of bygone generations can be criticized and placed as successes or failures, but in these days of strenuous output one cannot speak with any certainty as to what is ephemeral and what is enduring. Our own times are too close to us, and must be left for future historians to pronounce judgment upon. Hence only the most notable and brilliant successes amongst modern operatic works are, generally speaking, recorded.

It is hoped that the Chapters on “What is Opera?” and “How to listen to and enjoy Opera” may touch to some extent on new ground and may be [Pg vii] helpful to the amateur. Appendix A has entailed an enormous amount of work, and although it contains, of course, nothing that cannot be gathered from other sources, it is trusted that the information thus compiled and placed under one heading may be of use and of interest to the student of Opera. The tabulated State Grants in Appendix B will show, what is perhaps not generally known, how badly off England is in this matter as compared with many other countries.

The book is offered in all sincerity to those who care to read it. There are, possibly, mistakes and errors. If this be so, I will ask my good friends to point them out to me, in the hope of my having an opportunity of availing myself of such corrections in a second edition of this work.

E. M. L.

Woodford Green,
November 1909.

[Pg viii]

What is Opera?—Derivation of term—A musical work—An artificial product—Its justification—Emotional effect of music—Hybrid opera—Modern taste demands one medium of expression—A definition—Music an accessory to opera, but an important one.

What is Opera? A question easy to ask, but one that by no means finds so ready an answer; the definitions, “A drama set to music,” “A musical play,” and so forth, being but loose and inaccurate, and not conveying any real idea as to that which they seek to define.

The term “Opera,” derived, or rather abbreviated from the words “Opera in Musica” (Works in music—i.e., a musical work), may be at once seen to be only a convenient title that has found favour by its brevity and through lack of a better: translate it and read “works,” and we may see that it is a meaningless term in all else than that it is something created. [Pg 2]

And what is this “something” that has been created, that is in people’s mouths so often, and that we designate by the word “Opera”? The least cultured will be able to answer that it is a work for the stage, in which music plays a prominent part: that it is this, and something more, must be shown as we study its rise and development.

Let us go a little deeper in our search for a definition. In studying real opera we shall find that not only is it a dramatic production, and that music plays an important part in it, but that any spoken dialogue is foreign to its nature. It is therefore a continuous musical work, uninterrupted by speeches or sentences spoken by the natural voice—sung throughout, the music being illustrative of the story that is being unfolded, and accompanied by appropriate gesture and action. Evidently, then, Opera is a very artificial production; for although under some circumstances one may indeed burst forth into spontaneous song, it is difficult to imagine any considerable number of connected incidents or episodes in one’s life which would naturally suggest music, to which music would be a fitting accompaniment, or which would demand vocalized words for the adequate expression of the sentiments aroused by them. [Pg 3]

Fierce rage, passion, death agonies, jealousy, quarrelling on the one hand, and wit, humour, ordinary dialogue on the other—instances of these are more or less commonly met with in our ordinary experiences, and as such they are frequently and naturally reproduced on the stage. But feelings or emotions called up by such events are by no means naturally expressed by musical sounds; and yet in opera we find such emotions, such conditions frequently constituting some considerable portion of the subject-matter of the piece; and since all is sung, it follows that musical expression of these emotions must necessarily be rendered.

Opera, then, must be admitted to be a thing of artificiality. Some will say, “Since the introduction of music into a dramatic work admits an unreal element into that which might otherwise receive a natural interpretation, how can its existence be justified?”

The answer to this is, that whatever may be the feelings or actions to be expressed by the stage characters, proper and suitable music will express them with far greater intensity and far greater power than will spoken words or mere gesture. Such are the emotional qualities of the art of music that a phrase of quite ordinary significance in words may [Pg 4] become, if wedded to expressive music, a thing of beauty and life; an emotional feeling may be roused in the auditor that the mere spoken word could never have touched. In the case of words that may themselves contain beautiful ideas, their loveliness can be greatly enhanced by the addition of music, their meaning intensified, their impressiveness doubled.

Artificial, then, as Opera is, and must be, it can justify its artificiality: a drama is put upon the stage, and in order that its situations, its sentiments, and its meaning may be more fully expounded, music is called in to elucidate, to express, and to beautify. Admitting the possibility of this—which no one who has the least feeling for music, or who is at all moved emotionally by the art of sweet sounds, can deny—we find that Opera justifies its existence, despite its unreality and its unlikeness to life.

But all Opera is not sung throughout: there is a large number of musical works under this name having spoken dialogue. Justification for these is more difficult, for it may be readily understood that one form of expression should be used throughout, and that this modified form of Opera (known as Singspiel), being neither one thing nor the other, is a hybrid form, which really has no right of admission to the title of [Pg 5] Opera at all. The fact that it is often effective and highly popular hardly excuses its violation of art form. Of this more anon, for so many plays of this kind with musical numbers were written at a certain period of the history of the art and were classed as operas, that their claims cannot be overlooked. But modern taste in opera demands that one medium of expression be made use of throughout, and thus a return has been made to the early and more artistic form of “Opera in Musica”—the true form, of which the Singspiel is only an offshoot.

We may answer our question, then, “What is opera?” in some such manner as this: An opera is a play designed for the stage, with scenery, costumes, and action used as accessories as in all stage plays, but with the additional use of music to intensify the meanings of the lines which are uttered by the characters, to generally heighten the effect produced by the other combined arts, and to add an emotional element that might otherwise be lacking.

Let us notice that music is only an accessory to the play: an important one, it may be granted, but yet only an accessory. It has been through failure to recognize this limited position of music in opera that [Pg 6] accounts for thousands of operas never being heard now. The exaltation of the music at the expense of plot, action, and dramatic fitness has caused the downfall of many a promising operatic composer. Public taste has been to blame, but in the long run it has always veered round to a proper appreciation of the truly artistic; it has made many mistakes, but sooner or later, guided by some master mind, it has discarded the false and taken to the true and real form of opera, with the result that most operas written to-day are consistent wholes, dominated by one general idea, and written upon one fixed governing principle.

Opera, then, generally speaking, is an Art form, in which a stage play is presented with all usual accessories, but with the important addition of continuous music: this is a general definition, but one of which there are so many modifications that we must turn aside for a moment to trace how it happens that so many forms and varieties of opera as there seem to be have sprung into existence.

The centuries see little change in the elements of the drama—Growth of opera concurrent with the progress of the art of music—Points of difference between early operas (Monteverde, etc.) and those of Scarlatti and later writers—Birth of the aria—England and France of the same date—Opera buffa—Musical empiricism—Gluck—His followers—Varying subjects treated—Italian opera —Abuses by the singers—Wagner and modern opera.

The changes that have taken place in opera during the short three hundred years which constitute the life of modern music are far more prominent and important than those that have been undergone by the ordinary dramatic work: the arts of elocution, gesture, and stage action are very old ones, and have seen little radical change for many centuries. Great progress has been made through the use of modern mechanical devices and inventions in the mounting of all stage pieces—i.e., in the scenery employed, the lighting, and stage [Pg 8] effects generally: these all appeal to the eye; but the appeal to the ear is not, in an ordinary dramatic work, more powerfully made than it was in the days of the Greek dramatist. But when music is added, then appeal to the ear of a most powerful kind takes place, and during the whole life of the youngest of the Arts the improvements and growth in musical technique and expression have been grafted upon opera with continuously progressive power and effect.

Now, since opera has demanded for its representation an art that has been in a state of continuous growth, it will follow that the different classes of opera will closely correspond with the different styles and schools of music: we shall find therefore that the earliest operas were only able to employ crude and undeveloped music, none better being available; that as musical skill and knowledge grew, as additional instruments were added to the orchestra, as knowledge of forms developed, so all these improvements found their way into operatic music, with the result that the difference between say a seventeenth and an eighteenth century opera is a very wide one, while a vaster difference still may be seen between one of the eighteenth and one of the late nineteenth century. [Pg 9]

We may briefly examine the causes of these differences, taking the dawn of all modern music (about 1600 A.D.) as the starting-point.

If we take the operas of the first few years of the seventeenth century, what do we find? That the form of tonality in use was the mode and not the scale; that time (i.e., measured music), as we now know it, did not exist; that harmony, as we now know it, did not exist; and that the instruments of the orchestra (although some have survived), were in the main instruments which have fallen into disuse, many of them having no modern counterparts. It needs little pointing out that this form of opera must have sounded very different to its successors.

The next important innovations, generally accredited to Monteverde, include the dramatic effects of pizzicato and tremolo passages for the stringed instruments—devices which have been used with the happiest results by all composers of subsequent date. Such devices, unknown in church music anterior to this time, or even in the music written for instruments only without voices in the church style, are most effectively employed for the illustration of certain situations on the stage: the mere introduction of these alone is sufficient to separate this school of opera from that which preceded it. [Pg 10]

But Monteverde’s inventions or adoptions did not stop here, for it was he who first added many instruments to the orchestra; not only did he employ additional instruments, but he used them in such a way as to wed certain characters or situations to music in which certain sets of instruments were employed, thus anticipating the much later Wagnerian device of accompanying certain ideas by a fixed theme, or by particular combinations in the orchestra.

So far the music of the opera was confined to recitative: that is, to the musical rendering of the dialogue without regular rhythm or melody. Another period of opera opened out altogether, when composers began to adapt portions of the dialogue to regular formal melody of a rhythmic nature, and in the diatonic scale, much as we now know it.

Credit for this is generally given to Cavalli, and his example was followed by a well-known early opera writer, Alessandro Scarlatti. The recitative of the latter took, too, a richer shape and form, inasmuch as it was now often accompanied by the whole of the orchestra, instead of merely by the continuous bass, completed by harpsichord harmonies.

Scarlatti, however, may claim a more still important innovation, the [Pg 11] adoption of set forms: his ideas were often cast into lyrical shapes, his solos were often arias of definite mould, and above all, he deliberately adopted the Da Capo Aria in the majority of his works. This Da Capo Aria would be described by a student of modern form as a “Ternary” movement, in so far as its first part was entirely repeated after the performance of a contrasted middle section. That Scarlatti’s invention killed itself by its own popularity is a matter to be spoken of elsewhere: suffice it to notice that the introduction of the “Da Capo” Aria brought into existence a new form of opera, different to all that had gone before.

Meanwhile opera was progressing in Germany, France, and England, each school having certain distinguishing characteristics. Purcell’s work in England was unlike that of any Continental opera composer, and his melodies have a boldness, freedom, and ring about them quite their own: English music of the period was a reflex of the national character, straightforward, honest, and vigorous. At the same time, Lully in France was developing quite another side of opera, by the introduction of the ballet, a form that has been retained till within quite recent times by the French.

Handel, although the success of his operas killed, for the time being, [Pg 12] all English-born ideas, added little or nothing to the forms of Scarlatti; he practically left opera where he found it, nor were his works as widely known on the Continent as in England. More importance may be attached to the rise, on the Continent, of a lighter form of opera, entitled “Opera Buffa,” in contradistinction to which opera proper received the title of “Opera Seria.” This delightful type had its rise in the intermezzo played between the acts of a dramatic piece, and only gradually obtained a separate existence: from the early attempts of Pergolesi and others there sprung an entirely new class of work, which had great influence on the history of opera generally.

Another step towards the now universally known form of opera was made when Logroscino invented the Concerted Finale, bringing several of his characters on to the stage at the same time, and giving them a simultaneous share in the music.

Let us notice that all these improvements effected in the music gradually led composers away from the true object of its use in opera, namely, that of enhancing the general effect produced; the music began to be looked upon as so important and so interesting on its own account that all dramatic considerations were allowed to lapse. Meanwhile the [Pg 13] personalities of the singers, as opposed to that of the characters they were personating, and their vocal abilities were thrust forward to the exclusion of almost all else.

This brought about an entire change of method, the dramatic and far-seeing composer Gluck remodelling opera entirely, and endeavouring to bring it, with the added resources made possible by the improvements in musical technique, into line with the consistent ideas of the Florentine amateurs, who endeavoured to reproduce opera on the model of the ancient Greeks.

Gluck’s reforms had a very wide influence upon the history of opera, which will be more fully dwelt upon in another place; an influence that may be traced in the magnificent efforts of the group of German masters that followed in the general lines laid down by him in their adherence to dramatic truth and fitness. Moreover, these composers, the greatest that the world has ever known, were developing the resources of music of all kinds, and their achievements in the field of composition generally were reflected in their writings for the stage. Consequently, we find in the operas of Mozart, Beethoven, Weber, and Schubert an advance in musical technique corresponding with the rapid strides which the art of music as a whole was then making. [Pg 14]

And again, their varied and diverse temperaments led them into widely different directions in their search for libretti, a point in which they were followed by Spohr, Marschner, Cherubini, Spontini, and others. The whole range of the field of opera was widening out, and the subjects selected for treatment were no longer solely classical or cast into classic mould, but included the romantic, the chivalrous, the supernatural, the plebeian, and other types of plot and character; these wide differences were of course reflected in the music.

Another point to be noticed about this period of opera is that the orchestra employed began to settle down into definite shape, the constituent instruments being those which form what we now call the classical orchestra. These instruments are such as are to be found (with one or two exceptions) in the orchestra of to-day, and such operas therefore admit of reproduction at the present time, because, although other instruments have been added to those which form the ordinary classical orchestra, no radical changes in methods of scoring have taken place since the time of Mozart, Beethoven, and Weber.

Opera had now become so many-sided an art form that it will be impossible in this brief resumé of its history to follow it [Pg 15] through all its varieties; the principal of these were the “Opera Comique” of the French, the Ballad Opera of the English, and the melodic and tuneful form of Italian opera, which claims Rossini as its shining light, and which, by its other sons, Donizetti and Bellini, attracted and riveted public attention in Europe for so long.

In the Italian form of opera, the aggressive and encroaching qualities of the prime donne threw certain portions of the music (i.e., their own arias and songs) into such prominence as to dwarf all else. Abuses were again to the fore; the solo singers, male as well as female, made the opera; plot, action, suitability, dramatic fitness—all mattered little so long as there were plenty of flourishes, vocal cadenzas, and roulades.

As in the days of Gluck, a strong man arose to revolutionize the whole trend of things, to turn the music back into its proper channel, to stop its overwhelmingly preponderant importance, and to restore harmony among the arts employed for the proper rendering of musical drama. This man was Wagner, beyond whose achievements opera has as yet moved no step. His methods of orchestration, his additions to the ordinary orchestra, his devices of guiding themes, and of the continual [Pg 16] employment of song-like (although unrhythmic) melody, known as Melos, constitute so many new features in the history of opera.

Modern opera, since his time, has presented us with nothing sufficiently fresh to justify for itself the claim to have had any radical influence in operatic development. The resources of the technique of the art, the increased freedom with which remote discords and far-fetched modulations are attacked, the greater facility exhibited by composers in welding various themes together, and in their use of the orchestra, are only a following of the principles and practices of Wagner. Since his mighty operas were produced there is no epoch-making event to chronicle.

Thus, side by side with the development and progress of the composition and practice of music, opera has developed and progressed, from the days of the simple monodic school, to the complex polyphony of the twentieth century. This has been briefly, and without detail, demonstrated above; and we now turn to a more analytical examination of the various phases of opera. Before doing this, however, it will be as well to examine a little more deeply into the causes of the somewhat frequent checks in its history, which we have cursorily mentioned, and of the reforms and uprootings of the abuses which have constantly [Pg 17] hindered its growth: a brief enquiry into those abuses will help us more clearly to understand what opera really should be, and also how much is due to those stalwart heroes of opera who have defied the whole of the civilized world in their efforts to establish, or to re-establish, it upon a proper basis.

Reforms, and the reasons thereof—Monteverde’s influence—Musical innovations—The stage discards music of the ecclesiastical order—The beauty of Scarlatti’s arias—Their weakness—Gluck—Gluck’s explanation of his reforms—Triumph of his methods—Another retrogression—Rossini—Wagner—The leit-motif—Influence on subsequent composers—Will further reforms become necessary, and what shape will they take?

The word reformer is here used in its original sense, for each of the composers named in the heading to this chapter had very considerable influence in the reconstitution and re-casting of the structure of opera in his day.

These were the men who, perhaps more than all others, were not content to leave opera in the groove in which they found it: for at the respective periods in which they lived opera had drifted into grooves, and it was the influence of these composers that arrested its progress [Pg 19] in the various wrong directions in which they found it drifting; they set themselves first of all to stem the currents that were carrying opera astray, and then constructed new works as examples of what could and should be done.

Hence we call them the reformers, and may now examine into the achievements of each of them in turn, noticing the condition of things that prevailed when they first entered the field, their influence upon it, and the result of their work.

First of all, Monteverde. So many innovations are connected with his name, that he would appear to have been a reformer of music in general; it is not certain, however, that all that history credits him with is really his due. But this is certain, that opera before his time was a very different thing to opera subsequent to that period.

The efforts of the early Florentine amateurs, the Palazzo Bardi enthusiasts, of whom more anon, had been towards the production of opera on the lines of the ancient Greek play. This was opera as Monteverde found it. He, original thinker and worker that he was, applied the same daring innovations to his operatic music which he had employed in his compositions for the church. These consisted mainly in an utter disregard for the principles of strict counterpoint, and a free use of unprepared discords. [Pg 20]

Now these discords, harsh and ill-sounding, when performed by a number of voices without accompaniment in the church, made a very different effect in the opera-house: the effect of a solo voice, accompanied by instruments, was very different to that of a chorus; and discordant passages, which violated both the spirit and the meaning of sacred words, were quite in their place—nay, more, they frequently heightened the dramatic intensity of the situation when used in opera. So great was Monteverde’s success, so dramatic and expressive his music, that all composers since his day have followed in his footsteps, and have composed operas on the model of free and unfettered writing originated by him.

His novelties of orchestration; his use of instruments, grouped quite in the modern manner for accompanying certain characters, or for defining particular situations, have already been touched upon; and these characteristic features continue to give him a very prominent position as a reformer of early opera. By him the complexion of matters was utterly changed, and the groove of writing in the church style for the stage, prevalent until his day, was left for ever.

SCARLATTI.

[Pg 21]

A century and more later we find a new reformer in Gluck. What had happened in the meanwhile? Opera had fallen under the great and commanding influence of Alessandro Scarlatti, whose methods, if not amounting to reform, had certainly led to abuse. It has been mentioned that he invented the Da Capo Aria; this was at first a welcome feature, because it gave point and meaning to the music, more definiteness of idea, and greater unanimity of design. Compare it with what had gone before, an endlessly dreamy musical recitation without form, without symmetry or rhythm, without set melody; the only attributes of the older style were its dramatic intensity and truth. And then Scarlatti appeared upon the scene; invented beautiful melodies, and cast them into regular mould, so that an audience knew that it only had to wait while a second part was gone through, to hear again a first part that had perhaps given much pleasure: it was a kind of encore, granted without trouble or uncertainty. We can imagine the melody-loving Italians of the day welcoming this beautiful and artistic innovation.

But the beauty and charm of the idea compassed its own ruin; for, being but a formal procedure, it did not equally suit every situation; indeed, it may readily be understood that there must have been very many occasions when it was little short of absurd, for stage purposes, [Pg 22] to go twice through the same emotional aspects and crises. In the operas, and in many of the oratorios of our own master, Handel, we may hear, and perhaps it may be confessed, be wearied by this inevitable repetition; for the sense of appreciation in music is readier than it used to be, and the more truthfully dramatic music of later generations tends to render almost intolerable a long, unchanged recapitulation of something already heard.

But apart from its dramatic unfitness, the real mischief of the Da Capo Aria lay in the fact that it attracted too much attention from the plot. Each of the principal singers in the caste demanded that he or she should have at least one example to sing, whether it suited the exigencies of the situation or no. The audience went to the opera house, not to hear an opera performed, but rather to delight in a series of bravura airs, and exercises in vocal agility, performed by popular singers. The real origin of opera was lost sight of, dramatic considerations were practically ignored, and the performance became of a lyrical, rather than of a dramatic, nature.

Now Gluck, curiously enough, had written many operas on this plan before it occurred to him to try to reform it; but his artistic nature at last revolted against the absurdities of works of this type, [Pg 23] successful though he had been in the production of such. After much thought and labour he set himself the task of remodelling the music, in a manner which can best be explained by quoting his own words, written in the prefix to the score of Alceste:—

“When I undertook to set the opera of Alceste to music, I resolved to avoid all those abuses which had crept into Italian opera through the mistaken vanity of singers and the unwise compliance of composers, and which had rendered it wearisome and ridiculous, instead of being, as it once was, the grandest and most imposing stage of modern times. I endeavoured to reduce music to its proper function, that of seconding poetry, by enforcing the expression of the sentiment, and the interest of the situations, without interrupting the action, or weakening it by superfluous ornament.... I have been very careful never to interrupt a singer in the heat of a dialogue, not to stop him in the middle of a piece, either for the purpose of displaying the flexibility of his voice on some favourable vowel, or that the orchestra might give him time to take breath before a long sustained note.... My object has been to put an end to abuses against which good taste and good sense have long protested in vain.... There was no rule which I did not consider myself bound to sacrifice for the sake of effect.” [Pg 24]

From these quotations we may form some idea both of the serious errors that had crept into opera and of the thorough nature of the reforms which Gluck contemplated. He had many, and severe, battles to fight before he gained public opinion to his side; but eventually he brought the artistic world round to his point of view, with the result that a complete change of method was again adopted by composers: the progress of opera, which had drifted into a wrong channel, was again headed in the right direction by a masterly hand, and for some time a more real and genuine school of opera held the boards.

But history repeats itself. Years passed away and operas were written both good and bad: Mozart, with his beautiful and delicate pen; Beethoven, with his imperishable picture of the faithful wife; Weber, the composer par excellence of Romantic opera; Spohr, and others all left their influences—and in the main thoroughly artistic and beautiful ones—upon music drama. To this chain of great classics there succeeded, however, a group of lesser luminaries whose tendencies were less truthfully artistic, whose leanings were popular rather than æsthetic, and whose influence was to a great extent mischievous. [Pg 25]

Most grievous of such offenders was Rossini, whose gifts of ready and spontaneous melody led him sadly astray. His knowledge of effect was wonderful, but his methods were of the clap-trap order, and although there are admirable points in his work, its appeal was made to popular taste rather than to the musician, and popular taste is a fickle thing. For a while, Rossini, with his sensuous melodies, his whirling crescendi, his tricky orchestration, carried Europe with him—into wrong paths; for the taste for such things is not a healthy one, nor can the appetite always be satisfied by a glut of sweetmeats.

Besides Rossini there was, as always, a host of imitators who follow their hero at more or less respectful distances, producing works which were pleasant enough but had little or none of the material that makes for endurance, even though the whims, fancies, and tastes of some of our prime donne are responsible for their production, now and again, even in the twentieth century.

Opera, indeed, during all this period was again straying from the right lines: again the singers, with their executive abilities, were distracting attention from the equally important dramatic meaning of the works performed. Again the aria and duet were usurping the place of [Pg 26] music which should have been defining the stage situation, and conveying to the ear of the auditor a tone-picture to match the scenic representation, and to help to carry on the action of the piece, which, indeed, during these vocal performances suffered much from stagnation.

It needed a strong hand to stem the tide on this occasion, and a strong hand was available in the person of Richard Wagner, whose efforts have revolutionized opera to so great an extent that it is unlikely that any great work for the stage will ever be conceived in the future which will not show traces of his influence. For he took no half-measures, but went to the root of the matter, and that in so thorough a way that he really invented an utterly new phase of expression. Until his employment of the kind of music which we call Melos (a continuous stream of melody without definite rhythm, tune, or cadence) music in general, and more especially operatic music, had always, from the time of the early composers of the Monodic School, paid some little regard to form and shape. But Wagner, whose great idea it was that in the rendering of opera the arts of Music, Action, Poetry, and Scenery should stand on an equal footing, was unable to allow attention to be devoted to the music in the very special way in which it was drawn when set forms of song or air were admitted. It overturned the balance which he deemed so desirable, and threw into prominence one art at the expense of the others.

WAGNER.

[Pg 27]

Consequently, with wondrous energy, skill, and in the face of the usual relentless opposition, he gradually worked his way to the construction of what was, until his time, an absolutely unknown form of dramatic accompaniment. In so far as it was continuous, and expressive of the stage situation, it resembled the music of the Italian composers who preceded Scarlatti. But the great and original innovation of Wagner was his use of melody (a feature non-existent in the works of the Monodic writers); not melody of the stereotyped nature which we designate as tune, nor even the rhythmic, square-cut, and often beautifully appropriate melody of a Mozart or a Beethoven. Wagner’s melodies were so constructed that they had, generally speaking, definite signification: every subject (or leit-motif, as it was called) was intended to suggest to the mind of the hearer some definite idea connected with something occurring upon, or suggested by the stage. Not that the entrance of a certain character was always accompanied by certain music; rather, a deeper psychological problem was offered, the [Pg 28] words sung calling up definite ideas, or such suggestions being left to the music alone on occasion.

And for this type of theme Wagner chose either certain definite passages or fragments of melody, such as the opening phrase of “Parsifal”—

Melodic Leit-motif. (Wagner’s “Parsifal.”)

[Audio]

or certain chord progressions, such as the following:—

Harmonic Leit-Motif. (Grail Theme, “Lohengrin.”)

[Audio]

[Pg 29] or sometimes characteristic methods of orchestration. Moreover, since the stage action or words would very often describe or suggest many ideas at the same time, these themes would be often superimposed; with the result that the music of Wagner’s operas—at any rate the later ones—is not so much a stream of melody as a flow of many combined melodies, working together in contrapuntal richness and fertility into a harmonious whole, which can be listened to either casually (in which case it may or may not please the auditor) or after considerable study, when it will undoubtedly awake interest and admiration.

Now, between this kind of opera and that of the Rossini school it is very evident that a very vast amount of difference exists. Whereas in the latter the hearer had his ear delighted and tickled, without any trouble to himself, to his immediate satisfaction, the Wagner operas demand careful attention, study, and oft-rehearing for intelligent appreciation.

The lazy, pleasure-loving portion of mankind was immediately up in arms against such startling methods as these, and even to-day, although the Wagner-cult is a very considerable one, it is to be doubted whether the real tastes of the majority of operatic listeners are not rather for something demanding less careful and close attention. Whether this be [Pg 30] so or no, the point remains that Wagner’s innovations, when once understood and grasped, were seen to be so dramatically true and fitting that all composers of operas, since his works became widely known, have come under his influence, and have in large measure framed their dramatic music on the lines laid down by him.

Here, then, was another revolution, and an important one. Formal melody still exists on the stage, but the continuous inter-connecting links of melos are derived from Wagner, while the wondrous harmonies and chord combinations which he was the first to introduce into the realm of opera, have been so many additions to the material which the modern composer has for manipulation.

Since Wagner there have been no reformers; we do not yet see in what direction reform is to come. If we are to rely on history, which certainly seems to repeat itself with regard to opera, we are probably slowly trending in some wrong direction or other. What that wrong direction is we shall only know when some mighty master mind has turned us out of it. It may be that the Wagner operas, which seem at the present time to be the height of dramatic perfection, may yet contain many serious flaws, either in workmanship or in method; this much is certain, that no imitator of Wagner has achieved permanent success: the [Pg 31] Colossus stands alone, and none can vie with him on his own ground.

But opera must go on: if the Wagner reforms cannot be successfully adopted and used by others, operas will be written (as they are being written) on other lines. Some of these new works will be good and some bad, but the present seems to be a period of interregnum such as succeeded the times of Monteverde and of Gluck. We are experiencing a spell of more or less unimportant operatic production which will, in all probability, go on slowly in some wrong direction until the brain of some clear-sighted and gifted genius has discovered that we are all astray, and will alter the whole course of things. Until his advent we have no name to add to our list of reformers of opera.

Early commencement of opera—The Bardi enthusiasts—What they achieved—Peri and Caccini—A logical commencement—Its imperfections.

It is a curious and interesting fact that the birth of opera should be due more or less to accident, and should owe its origin to a group of amateurs: but so it is, and to the blind gropings in the dark after a something (they knew not what) of a small circle of polished scholars, we owe the form of opera as we have it to-day.

It is impossible to trace back to the earliest times the addition of music to a stage play; from the constant references to the use of the art made by the Greek poets, we know that it was a handmaid to the drama from very early times. In the Middle Ages, too, there is plenty of [Pg 33] evidence to show that, at certain stated intervals in the course of the drama, music was introduced; but such music as this was always written in the church style of the period, and had no significance of its own.

It was the annoying and incongruous presentation of polyphonic music (written in strict contrapuntal style, and in the church manner) with the performance of dramas, in which such music was utterly out of place, that led the band of amateurs mentioned above to search for a more suitable means of clothing the dramatic ideas and stage situations.

This band of dilletanti is generally known by the name of the “Palazzo Bardi” coterie, from the fact that their chief representative was a certain Count Bardi, and that their meetings were usually held at his palace in Florence. This city was, at the period of which we write (the last part of the sixteenth century), highly interested in the masterpieces of literary antiquity, more especially in the magnificent dramas of the older Greek poets. Although the Florentines knew that these tragedies had some form of musical accompaniment, they were quite in the dark as to what that music was; they felt, however, that the one and only prevalent kind of music of their day—i.e., sacred [Pg 34] music, was by no means adequate for the expression of the ideas to be represented. The Bardi amateurs therefore turned the steps of their native musicians towards other paths, and induced them to write music of a kind which they believed to be dramatically fit and suitable. That this music was a failure does not matter in the least, for although it was unable to give any genuine idea of what these enthusiasts sought—namely, a reproduction of Greek tragedy consistent with its original form—it invented a new medium and method of expression, of which composers soon availed themselves in setting to music the dramatic productions of the day. The first of these early composers to achieve success in this field was Peri, who produced in 1594 (or 1597) Daphne, and a few years later, in 1600, Euridice. Daphne was semi-privately performed, but Euridice was put before the world, and achieved such success that its method and style of composition were soon taken as models for stage music. Hence the date 1600 is assigned as that of the birth of real opera; the same year seeing the production of the first real oratorio, as we now understand the term. We quote the whole of the short prologue to the earliest known opera: [Pg 35]

Prologue to “Euridice.” (Peri, A.D. 1600.)

[Audio]

[Pg 36] while for an example of early operatic dance-music the final “Ritornello” from the same opera may serve as illustration.

Final Ritornello in Peri’s “Euridice.”

[Audio]

Questo Ritornello va riplicato più volte, e ballato da due Soli del Coro.

[Pg 37]

Peri led the way; others followed. In a short decade the North of Italy produced a whole school of writers who had grafted their ideas on those of the composer of Euridice, chief among them being Caccini, who won great fame in the new style. But the chief merit must be accorded to Peri, for it was to him that we owe the invention of the dramatic recitative; that is to say, instead of coupling the dialogue to music that might have been designed for the church, as his predecessors had been content to do, he endeavoured in his operas to allow the singing voice to depict the ideas expressed by inflections such as would be made by the speaking voice under similar circumstances. As he himself tells us in his preface to Euridice, he watched the various modifications in sound made by the speaker in ordinary conversational dialogue, and sought to reproduce these in music: “Soft, gentle speech by half-spoken, half-sung notes on an instrumental bass; more emotional feelings by melody of more disjunct character, and at a quicker rate,” etc.

Thus was opera, in our modern meaning of the term, begun, and this, too, on a proper, logical, æsthetic basis. It was in 1600 a new form, an untried and questionable innovation; but it contained the elements [Pg 38] of strength and endurance, and by rapid steps grew and developed, until within a few short years all other methods of accompanying stage plays by music were obsolete, and the new “Monodic” style held unquestioned sway.

Crude it certainly was, for modern tonality, as we understand it, was still undeveloped; harsh and ugly much of its music must have been, for melody was unknown, time was practically non-existent, and of form there was none. And yet, in so far as it sought in its music to faithfully reproduce the dramatic situation, such work was more truly of the essence of opera than many another of more recent date and of greater success. Unlike the polyphonic choral music of its date, it will not bear performance in our own day, yet for it must be claimed truth, strength, and clearness of aim; as pioneer work it has been invaluable.

Monteverde—Scarlatti—Cambert—Lully—Keiser—Purcell—Handel in London—Handel’s rival, Buononcini—Handel’s operas now obsolete by reason of their lack of dramatic truth.

Opera in Italy, after its initial stages, as represented by the works of Peri and Caccini, fell under the commanding sway of Monteverde, of whose influence we have already said much in the chapter upon the “Reformers of Opera.” An example of his melodious, although, of course, somewhat crude style, may be seen in the “Moresca” which we append:— [Pg 40]

Fragment of a “Moresca” (Dance) from Monteverde’s “Orfeo” (1609).]

[Audio]

[Pg 41] Monteverde was followed by his pupil Cavalli, who worked in Venice, and who improved the recitative; in his operas, male sopranos (Castrati) were first employed on the stage, a practice in vogue for many years subsequently. Cavalli also foreshadowed the aria, or set melody, soon to become so prominent a feature of Italian opera. Among other prominent composers of this period are Cesti and Legrenzi, Caldara and Vivaldi.

These men, however, stand completely overshadowed by that Colossus of early opera, Alessandro Scarlatti. Naples was the scene of his activity, and here he wrote, amongst countless other compositions, over one hundred operas, most of which made their mark. In Scarlatti we have the turning-point between antiquity and modernity in stage music. Of course his operas sound old-fashioned to us, but it would be quite possible to listen to them, whereas those of a former date could only have antiquarian interest if produced now. His great genius for melody caused him to modify very considerably the stiff, though dramatically correct, recitative of earlier composers, and to substitute beautiful, and sometimes inappropriate, airs in its place. [Pg 42]

In this dangerous method of exalting the music at the expense of the other arts employed in music drama he was followed by almost all composers for very many years—until, in fact, the recognition by Gluck of the falseness of the situation. Opera writers there were by the hundred: the names of most of these are now forgotten—many remembered; Rossi, Caldara, Lotti, Buononcini, all had their successes, and contributed in various degrees to the development of early Italian opera.

But before this, Opera had found its way to France; the world-renowned Euridice had been performed in Paris as early as 1647, and its influence was quickly felt. Masques and ballets had been staged before this time, but Robert Cambert was the first French writer to produce opera. At first successful, Cambert was ousted from his deservedly high position as the founder of French opera by the unscrupulous and brilliant Lully.

For Lully “came, saw, and conquered.” Although an Italian,[1] his name is one of the most prominent in the history of opera in France. Coming from Florence to Paris at an early age, he quickly saw his way to improving on the popular operas of Cambert, and his inventive and fertile talent soon put the older writer into the background. Lully’s great gift lay less in aptitude for the conception of melody, or even in his skill with the orchestra, than in the powers he possessed of writing truly dramatic and suitably expressive recitative. Moreover, he employed his chorus as an integral factor in the situation, not as a mere collection of puppets encumbering the stage; he is credited, too, with the invention of the “French” overture, a form in which an introductory slow movement is followed by another in quick fugal style, with a third short dance movement to conclude. Like Scarlatti in Italy, Lully in France towers high above all opera composers of that period, and his mark upon French Grand Opera exists till this day.

LULLY

[Pg 43]

Germany at the same period can boast of no name of like importance, but operatic development was taking place in this country also, the chief agent in its progress here being Keiser, who produced a great number of operas in Hamburg. Although not the first to write such works in Germany, he is important as being an early factor in the popularization of opera during the forty years in which he laboured in this direction: he had also many followers, among whom must be named Handel, who wrote a few operas for Hamburg at an early period of his career. German opera at this time, however, gave but little promise of the grand future before it: the operas of Keiser and Hasse contain but few indications of [Pg 44] the glories of a school of composers that includes Mozart, Beethoven, and Weber.

And what was England doing at this period? One genius of the highest rank, some would say the greatest child of music that England has ever produced, was at work in the form of Henry Purcell, whose too short life was in part occupied by the composition of opera. Spontaneity of melody, freshness and boldness of thought, and rare dramatic conception are the chief characteristics of the works of our early English master. Many of these are operas by courtesy only, for in only one of them, Dido and Æneas, is the music continuous throughout; this, however, may claim for itself the title of the first English opera. Before this time (about 1675) masques and plays had employed music incidentally, but Dido is the earliest known instance of its continuous use. Purcell did not follow up his early operatic success, most of the other stage works, such as King Arthur, containing spoken dialogue. It is unfortunate for England and her musical sons that the dominating personality of Handel so soon overshadowed all other musical life in this country: the wholly sound and æsthetically true national influence of Purcell would undoubtedly have been large, and it is not too much to say that an early school of genuine English [Pg 45] opera might have flourished, had it not been that the great Saxon composer was, within a few years of Purcell’s death, turning his attention to the production of opera in London.

For although Handel produced operas in Germany, in Italy, and in England, it was in London that the very large majority of his pieces first saw the light, and that he achieved the greatest success. Between the date of the first performance of Rinaldo at the Haymarket, February 24th, 1711, and that of his last opera, Deidamia in 1741, Handel composed no less than forty-two grand operas. With indomitable energy, and in face of very frequent misfortune, he poured forth these works, many of which contain powerful music. Undeterred by failure, he took one theatre after another in London, sometimes making much money, at other times becoming bankrupt. The final stage in Handel’s operatic career was brought about by a lengthy and expensive rivalry between him and a clever Italian composer, Buononcini, who had been brought to England by an influential body of nobles and politicians whom the fiery Handel, and his supporters, had offended. The dispute became more than a musical one, and developed social and political sides: an amusing epigram by one John Byrom neatly sums up the situation:—

[Pg 46]

The sentiment of the two last lines was probably voiced by many, especially as both composers were men of great talent and capable of producing excellent work. In the end, the genius of Handel triumphed, but at the expense of both his pocket and his health; bankruptcy and paralysis came upon him, and he in future turned his attention to the more lucrative and less expensive art form, Oratorio.

That we have been the gainers thereby is undoubted, for whereas many of his oratorios are constantly performed, and are of commanding interest, few would care to sit through a performance of any of his operas, or indeed those of any of the composers mentioned in this chapter. It is not so much that the music is expressed in the idiom of a bygone era, for the style of Handel’s oratorio and opera music is, especially in the arias, very similar; and we are frequently able to listen with pleasure to old works, written for the clavier and for stringed [Pg 47] instruments by the Continental contemporaries of the men of this period. It is rather that the dramatic situation is so absurdly poor, that the stereotyped method of procedure in the distribution of the airs, the concessions to the solo singers and the character of the music given to them, and the stiff, unnatural use of the chorus in these operas, combine to make their presentation to-day a matter of artistic impossibility.

Gluck and his masterpieces—Mozart—Beethoven—Weber and romantic opera—Der Freischütz—Other operas—Schubert—Opera writing a distinct form of composition—The small influence of the really great composers upon opera.

The methods of Christoph Willibald Gluck, and his influence upon all that came after him, have already been touched upon. Unlike the operas of Monteverde, the works of the later reformer still hold the boards, and therefore a little consideration to these may now be given, seeing that they influenced the composers of all schools and of every nationality.

We may safely ignore the many works written on old methods and produced during the first forty years of the composer’s life; they are practically as obsolete as those of Monteverde. But those written under [Pg 49] the strong convictions forced upon him by comparative failure in England are of great importance, and are interesting, not only for the models they set to others, but also for the beauty and worth of the musical ideas which they contain.

Those that have the greatest claim to notice have the following titles:—

• Orfeo (1762), produced in Vienna.
• Alceste (1767)”   ”
• Paris and Helen (1769), produced in Vienna.
• Iphigenia in Aulide (1772), produced in Paris.
• Armida (1777), produced in Paris.
• Iphigenia in Tauride (1779), produced in Paris.

Of these works, the famous story of Orpheus and Euridice has perhaps the most dramatically beautiful musical setting, and is more often heard than are the other operas; be it borne in mind, however, that even in this masterpiece there is much that sounds antique both in method and in form; this is of necessity the case, when one considers the date at which Gluck wrote and the comparatively backward state of the art of music in the mid-eighteenth century. [Pg 50]

Gluck’s type of melody may be discerned from the following quotation:—

The commencement of the famous Aria, “Che faro,” from Gluck’s “Orfeo.”

[Audio]

[Pg 51]

Gluck, even in his later works, never reached the height of musical technique that was attained to by a young and glorious composer who was his contemporary for thirty years—almost the whole of his short life. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had other models to guide him, for the works of Grétry, Piccini, Sacchini, Benda, Cimarosa, and others were known to him, and in his scores we find a summing up of, and an improvement upon, all operatic music previously penned.

Mozart handles the orchestra in a more modern and a vastly more masterly way than any of his predecessors; his operas, too, deal with such a variety of subject that they show infinitely more resource and diversity of treatment than those of Gluck, which were all written on [Pg 52] the “grand” model. We feel that we have to do with men and women, creatures of flesh and blood, and not with far-away, shadowy classic shapes, whose appeals to our sympathies must naturally be less vivid. His melodies, too, of round, full outline, possess a richness of expression and a warmth that is not always discernible in the older master; and in addition we have vivacity, charm, and piquancy in the lighter scenes which had no place in the products of the more severe school. Two examples of Mozart will serve to illustrate his style. The first shows him in a lyrical mood,

A fragment of a Mozart “Canzone,” “Voi Che Sapete” (The Marriage of Figaro).

[Audio]

[Pg 53] while the second gives us the composer in more dramatic guise.

The famous passage from Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” when the Commandant appears.

[Audio]

[Pg 54] Mozart’s most successful operas are:—

• Idomeneo (produced at Munich, 1781).
• Die Entführung aus dem Serail (produced at Vienna, 1782).
• Le Nozze di Figaro (produced at Vienna, 1786).
• Don Juan (produced at Prague, 1787).
• Die Zauberflöte (produced at Vienna, 1791).

These, the most popular of which are The Marriage of Figaro and Don Juan, are written, for the most part, in the then prevalent Italian style. German opera, as a distinct national product, was not yet born, and although Mozart’s Magic Flute was a step in this direction, it is his Italian works that raise his name to so high a pinnacle in the temple of operatic fame. The bright and sparkling [Pg 55] Figaro is to be heard in every country and in many languages, while its more sombre companion, Don Juan, with its highly dramatic and noble music, is even more widely performed.

Beethoven, with his solitary opera, Fidelio, produced in Vienna, 1805, is a landmark. Although Italian in form to a great extent, this work shows tendencies towards that school of romantic thought which was so soon to become the characteristic feature of the best period of German opera; the music, carefully wrought and intrinsically beautiful, makes large appeal to the emotions; although in reality only a “Singspiel,” there being spoken dialogue, it is generally classed with grand opera, its music being so noble and dignified. An example of the greater modernity of Beethoven’s style may be seen in the subjoined passage.

Adagio opening of Beethoven’s “Leonora,” Overture No. 3,

introducing the theme of Florestan’s Air in Act III.

[Audio]

[Pg 56]

Romantic opera (i.e., opera in which the influence of the romance school of literature, as opposed to the classic, is felt) owes its prominence in the first place to Carl Maria von Weber. The music of such operas differs from that of the more classical models in its greater richness of harmony, its more remote and poignant use of discords, its sudden and unexpected turns of modulation, and its more picturesque orchestration. Although there are many suggestions of romantic opera before his day, it is to Weber that the credit of the foundation of this school of composition is, as a rule, usually ascribed. With his wonderfully beautiful work, Der Freischütz, he [Pg 57] led the way into a vast, and as yet comparatively unexplored field; other composers were ready enough to follow him, but his leadership is unquestionable.

The opera Der Freischütz lent itself particularly to the new mode of treatment: its story deals with the weird and the supernatural, and thus seems to demand a form of treatment distinct and different from that accorded to the calm and stately libretti of the older schools of opera. In his setting of this story, Weber made slight use of the conventional Italian methods; it is a German opera, pure and simple, with constant reference to the Volkslieder, and a noticeable absence of the stereotyped conventionalities of Aria and Ensemble.

Here is a short illustration from the famous “Incantation Scene”:—

Fragment from the Incantation Scene of “Der Freischütz.”

(The clock strikes twelve in the distance.)

[Pg 58]

Caspar (speaking through the music):
“Zamiel, by the wizard’s skill appear! Zamiel, hear me, hear!”

[Audio]

[Pg 59]

Der Freischütz was produced in Berlin in 1821. Like so many other of the finer old operas, it is a “Singspiel,” but for all that it still holds the boards, although modern taste in serious opera now prefers the continuous use of one means of expression—namely, music. It is almost the only opera of Weber’s that is ever heard, for Euryanthe, produced in Vienna in 1823, and Oberon, produced in London in 1826, in spite of their beautiful music, are unfortunately so poor from the dramatic point of view as to be almost intolerable, while the earlier operas previous to Der Freischütz do not show the composer at his best.

In Weber, whose one great work has had an untold influence upon operatic composers, we meet the last of the great masters (from an operatic point of view) until Wagner. Schubert, Schumann, and Mendelssohn were all so versatile that they achieved some success in opera; but it must be confessed that for any abiding result their work [Pg 60] has had, they might not have composed such works at all. Lesser stars in the musical firmament, such as Spontini, Marschner, and Meyerbeer, have had greater and wider reaching influence in this particular branch of musical art.

This is partly owing to the fact that these three mighty men of music were of a non-dramatic nature: Schubert more often turned to the stage than did Schumann or Mendelssohn, and his beautiful melodies and skilled knowledge of effect helped on his operas towards success in their day; but even his most popular examples, Fierabras and Alfonso and Estrella, very rarely obtained a hearing. Mendelssohn’s early works, The Wedding of Camacho and his fragment of Lorelei, are also comparatively unimportant, while Schumann’s Genoveva cannot be classed among the list of works in the ordinary repertoire.

It is curious and interesting to notice how small a share those who have reached the topmost pinnacle in the musical temple have had in the development of opera; while the influence of the great classical and romantic composers has been exerted with immense sway over almost every other form of the art, and while that influence has elevated and exalted such art forms to dignified and poetic heights, they have, with [Pg 61] the single exception of Mozart, left opera almost unaffected.

The heroes of opera, Gluck and Weber, were of far less importance as all-round composers than many of the masters whose operatic efforts they completely eclipse. Whereas without Gluck and Weber it would be difficult to conceive the position of opera to-day, we must admit that they have had little influence over other branches of composition.

On the other hand, the names of those most honoured in the art of composition appear seldom or never upon the operatic play-bill. The great contrapuntist, Bach, wrote no music for the stage; Haydn, the so-called “father” of the sonata, the string quartet, and the symphony, only composed a number of unimportant light operas; Beethoven, the perfecter of form and design, one solitary, though notable, example; Schubert, the unrivalled composer of songs, a few early works; Mendelssohn, the calm and classic writer of the oratorio, and of the beautiful orchestral overtures, a few boyish pieces; Schumann, the daring inventor of so many harmonic and rhythmic designs, and the composer of many a masterpiece of pianoforte and chamber music, again a [Pg 62] solitary and little known specimen. Brahms, the great apostle of absolute music, and of the classical school, followed Bach in leaving the stage severely alone.

Mozart stands out as the one great composer who rose to the highest point of eminence, not only as a creator of sonata, quartet, symphony, and choral work, but also as a consistently great and successful master of opera. All honour to the great versatility of his immeasurable genius!

(a) THE ITALIAN SCHOOL (CIMAROSA TO VERDI).

The Italian school—Opera Buffa—The Neapolitan school—Piccini—A notable contest—Cimarosa—Rossini: his Barber of Seville—Recitative and its significance—William Tell—Bellini and Donizetti—Verdi: his early and later operas.

Italy was the birthplace of modern opera, and for generations the language of opera was Italian, irrespective of the nationality of the composer. Thus a large number of the operatic works of Gluck and of Mozart, both of whom rank as German masters, were to libretti in Italian. On the contrary, many Italian-born musicians, such as Cherubini and Spontini, devoted their best efforts to Grand Opera in France. When speaking of the Italian school, therefore, it must be understood that the language of the libretto and the class of opera are taken into account, rather than the nationality of the composer. [Pg 64]

Side by side with Grand Opera, as typified by Gluck, there grew up a lighter and less serious form of musical play known as “Opera Buffa.” At first designed as an interlude or intermezzo between the acts of a serious drama, this new and bright art form was so fascinating as to quickly justify for itself a separate existence. It was mostly harmonious in character, and the music was, appropriately, of slighter texture. It flourished most luxuriantly in Naples, from which fact the composers of these charming little operas are generally classed as the “Neapolitan school.”

Logroscino (born about 1700), who invented the connected series of separate movements known as the Concerted Finale, and Pergolesi (1710-36), who wrote a famous example of this kind of opera under the title La Serva Padrona, are two notable members of this little band of composers. In addition to these may be named Jomelli, Sacchini, Galuppi, Paisiello, and Piccini, the last-named being specially famous through his contest with Gluck, a musical duel yet more notorious than that between Handel and Buononcini already mentioned. For Piccini, a man of great talent though not of genius, was brought to Paris in 1776 and pitted against the reformer Gluck, whose revolutionary methods of [Pg 65] procedure met with anything but favour in certain quarters. The rival composers, strongly backed by their respective supporters, fought bitterly for pre-eminence, with results only too disastrous to the poor Italian maestro, who was very unfortunately handicapped. For we read that on the night of the first production of the work, which was seriously intended to beat Gluck on his own ground (the same subject for a libretto—viz., Iphigenia in Tauride—having been chosen), his music was almost wrecked by the prima donna of the occasion, that good lady being hopelessly intoxicated; whereupon men exclaimed, “Not Iphigenia in Tauride, but Iphigenia in Champagne!” In spite of his merits, this composer of eighty operas is now hardly known, except in connection with this famous controversy.

CIMAROSA.

A more famous Neapolitan is Cimarosa, whose sparkling work, The Secret Marriage, is still played to-day. On the occasion of its first performance at Vienna in 1792, the Emperor was so delighted with it that he ordered its repetition on the same evening, thoughtfully providing the artistes with supper between the performances. Cimarosa’s other works, although charming and sometimes of great beauty, are now practically dead: his fame was soon eclipsed by that of the young and rising Mozart. [Pg 66]

With the success of Mozart and Weber in German opera, and the desertion of the Italian methods in favour of the French by Cherubini and Spontini, Italian opera lay for a while under a cloud. This was dispersed by the furore created by the operatic creations of Rossini, who, although by no means a very skilled or capable musician, had a rare knowledge both of effect and also of the kind of thing to which the general public loves to listen. Melodic gifts were his, and when one adds a certain clever and tricky use of the orchestra and an evident desire to give the singers the most vocal and effective music that he could possibly invent, we can readily understand how successful was this facile composer.

The earliest of his operas to win him fame was Tancredi, a grand opera produced in 1813. This was followed after an interval of two years by the production of one of his best known works, The Barber of Seville, an excellent example of Opera Buffa. Its overture is well known, and introduces samples of that effective device, cheap and yet wondrously convincing, known as the “Rossinian Crescendo.” This is attained, as will be seen, by the use of a simple figure of [Pg 67] melody begun very softly and continued with greater and greater degrees of power and more and more instruments. In spite of its simplicity and obviousness, its effect is an intoxicating one, and is an example of the simple and yet unfailing means by which Rossini attracted his public. [Pg 68]

Example of a Rossini “Crescendo,” from the Overture to “Il Barbiere.”

[Audio]

[Pg 69] The whole opera, with its brilliant bravura voice passages, its grandiose effects of double thirds, and its periods of climax, is particularly characteristic of its composer. Rossini produced a vast number of operas, both serious and comic; in the former he made a great innovation when he wrote Otello in 1816. We have already frequently mentioned that in Grand Opera the music must be always continuous; this, however, does not imply a continuous series of airs, duets, and choruses. These were divided by passages of blank verse or dialogue, which correspond to the passages of dialogue with which we in England are so familiar in the productions of Gilbert and Sullivan. [Pg 70] When these passages were spoken, as in Beethoven’s Fidelio or Weber’s Der Freischütz, the work, however tragic in subject, was not termed “Grand Opera” at all, but rather “Comic Opera” or “Singspiel.” When, however, all was sung, then the term “Grand Opera” was applied.

But a difference was given to the musical setting of such passages to that allotted to the more lyrical portions. At first, when there were no lyrics, as in the early Monteverde operas, the musical setting was of the same character throughout; after the introduction of the Aria into opera by Scarlatti, the intermediary dialogue was often set to music of a parlante (or speaking) nature, generally without time divisions or musical accent: this portion of the music was termed the Recitative.

So unimportant was this Recitative considered from a musical point of view that no trouble was taken in the writing of it—it was a necessary evil. Mozart, we find, on one or two occasions, entrusted its composition to his pupil Sussmäyr. Moreover, the orchestra rarely played the accompaniment to it, this task being entrusted to the harpsichord; even the part for this was not written out, only a bass with figures being provided. It will thus be seen how small a degree of importance was attached to the music of these connecting links: such [Pg 71] recitative was termed “Recitativo secco,” and of this our first quotation from Peri is a good example. (See page 35.)

Both Monteverde and Gluck had made attempts at relieving the dulness of this method of accompaniment by the introduction not only of the orchestra, but also of fitting and suitable music on certain occasions. Rossini revived this plan in Otello, and since then it has been generally employed in all serious opera. From the fact that the instruments of the orchestra are necessary for its proper presentation, this form of recitative has received the name of Recitativo Stromentato.

Rossini’s operas have mostly gone the way of all such light and trivial music, but among the more long-lived specimens may be named La Cenerentola, Gazza Ladra, and William Tell. The last named, with its popular overture, is a work of much better class than its brethren, and was written some long period after the others, when Rossini himself began to be dissatisfied with his earlier works. The fact, however, remains that he can never have taken himself as a very serious musician, for the last forty years of his life were spent in idleness and he wrote practically nothing. [Pg 72]

What has been said of the operas of Rossini applies also in very large measure to those of his followers—Mercadante, Pacini, Bellini, and Donizetti, all of whom wrote on the same empty plan. Of these four the last-named produced works which have had the greatest longevity, and, thanks to certain prime donne who have more belief in the beauty and skill of manipulation of their voices than they have love for the real and artistic in music, some are still to be heard during every opera season. The most famous Bellini opera is Norma, while La Sonnambula runs it a close second. Donizetti is remembered by Lucia di Lammermoor, Lucretia Borgia, La Favorita, La Fille du Régiment, and L’Elisir d’Amore.

More worth attaches to the many beautiful works of the last of this school, Verdi, who lived to so ripe an age and so modernized his methods that his later operas all belong rightly to a post-Wagner period. But in his early scores Verdi wrote entirely on the Italian model, and although of sterner mould than Bellini and Donizetti, his works bear a close family resemblance to those of his immediate predecessors. Like them, Verdi had a ready gift of melody. Such operas as Ernani (1844), Rigoletto (1851), Il Trovatore (1853), and La Traviata (1853)—the last-named having been written in the short space of one month—are replete with energy and vigour and full of broad and sometimes somewhat vulgar tune. These works still hold their position on the stage, and appeal to those who love easily grasped and tuneful music, coupled with interesting dramatic action.

VERDI.

[Pg 73] For years Verdi wrote operas on this popular plan, producing the familiar Un Ballo in Maschera as late as 1859. But the influence of the methods of Wagner was creeping over him, and (although he never attempted to follow the master to the full) it is evident in his grand opera Aïda, produced in 1871. This work, rich and glowing with local colour, and with a plot whose action is laid in Egypt, is a stepping-stone between the earlier and later operas, and shows the music of its composer in a transition stage. Here is a type of Verdi’s ready gift of melody:—

Radamès’ first Aria in “Aïda” (Verdi).

[Audio]

[Pg 74]

Otello, produced in 1887, and Falstaff in 1893, when its [Pg 75] wonderful creator was just upon eighty years of age, are modern operas in the real sense of the expression. The old Verdi is to a great extent laid aside, and these marvellous and powerful works, while still exhibiting great freshness of melody, give evidence also of such masterly use of the orchestra, and such perfect wedding of words with music as is only to be found in the music of the most modern days. So that in Verdi’s operas we stretch hands across the chasm that divides the simple, melodious, old-fashioned works from the complex polyphonic modern examples, and note in his compositions a movement and progress parallel with that made in all other branches of musical art during a similar period of its history.

(b) THE GERMAN SCHOOL (KEISER TO NICOLAI).

Keiser and his successors—Hiller—Real German opera—Spohr—Marschner—Operatic interest not centred in Germany at this time.

A good start was given to German opera, as we have already shown, by Keiser, who wrote over one hundred operas for the Hamburg house. The fact that after his decease the centre of interest shifts partly to England (where Handel was at work), and still more to Italy, does not mean that German composers were idle. True, many of them were writing operas on the Italian plan, and therefore must be classed with the Italian school, and even the greatest sons of German soil were content to produce their masterpieces in foreign capitals rather than at home. Thus it is that we find Gluck bringing out all his important works in Vienna or Paris; Mozart his at Prague, Munich, or Vienna; Beethoven his only specimen in Vienna. [Pg 77]

The work done on German soil must not, however, be passed over lightly. Stars of the second magnitude, such as Hasse (1699-1783), who wrote over one hundred operas, and Graun (1701-1759) have their place among the constellations. They are not important either in their influence upon opera generally nor upon German opera in particular, since their work was almost exclusively done to Italian libretti on the prevailing Italian model; but they both had great influence upon Adam Hiller, who has a distinct place in the history of opera.

For it is very largely to Hiller that the credit of the foundation of the “Singspiel” may be allotted. This form of opera, to which we must, of necessity, allude frequently, seeing that it was the form very largely in vogue at the time of Mozart, Beethoven, and Weber, although possibly derived in the first instance from the French operetta, soon justified its existence as a distinctly German form of art.

Hiller raised it from a mere collection of songs, and adopted an able and dramatic method in setting the words to forms of larger outline and of more complex development. His chief works are Der Dorfbarbier and Die Jagel, both of which sometimes gain a hearing to-day. Without doubt he had something to do with the success attained by Weber and Mozart, for although their settings of similar “song-plays” are [Pg 78] infinitely superior, their work is certainly more sure by reason of the leadership he gave them. The pioneer in a new land seldom reaches its utmost limits.

Hiller’s operettas were German and not Italian, and that also must have affected Mozart and Weber, for they were able to notice the deeper appeal made on a German audience by a performance in the vernacular, and both eventually followed suit. Until the production of Der Freischütz at the Berlin Opera House in 1821 there was little to justify such a course, but after that date we find many composers writing German operas, and founding a school of composition which includes such names as Spohr, Marschner, Lortzing, Lindpaintner, and Nicolai.

Spohr’s greatest operatic work, Faust, was actually staged at Frankfort two years before Der Freischütz first saw the light of day. Although very popular both in Germany and England for many years, this opera rarely gets a performance now, it having been entirely eclipsed by Gounod’s work of the same title.

J. A. HILLER.

[Pg 79] Besides Faust, Spohr wrote many other operas, following Weber to a large extent in romanticism of method, although the peculiarly chromatic genius of his music never leaves one in doubt as to its authorship. The most successful of these are Zemir and Azor, Jessonda, Der Berggeist, and Der Alchymist, all almost entirely forgotten now. The popular song with sopranos, “Rose Softly Blooming,” comes from the first-named of these.

A still more faithful follower in the footsteps of Weber was Heinrich Marschner, who loved the demoniacal and the weird, and gloated over them in his music. His operas, the most famous of which are Der Vampyr, Hans Heiling, and The Templar and the Jewess (founded on Scott’s Ivanhoe), still have a hold on German affections. The study of Hans Heiling is held to have had a great influence over Wagner at the time he was composing The Flying Dutchman.

Many composers of this school and this date remain in our memories through the more or less frequent performances of their most successful work. Among such may be named Lortzing (1803-1852), composer of Peter the Shipwright (a story dealing with Peter the Great’s life in the shipbuilder’s yard at Zaandam); Flotow (1812-83), composer of the tuneful and popular Martha; Kreutzer (1782-1849), Lindpaintner (1791-1856), and Nicolai (1810-49). The overture to the last-named composer’s Merry Wives of Windsor is world famous. [Pg 80] Peter Cornelius (1824-74) and Goetz (1840-76) each composed a well-known opera, The Barber of Bagdad and The Taming of the Shrew respectively.

The fact that the Germans at this time did not produce composers of greater operatic eminence is due largely to the fact that the grandeur and charm of French grand opera was drawing many devotees and many composers to Paris. While Italy had its brilliant Rossini and Verdi to uphold the traditions of national opera in their own land, there was no composer of German opera on a like eminence, or one that could successfully vie with the ever-increasing magnificence and interest of the grand opera of Paris. To that brilliant episode in the story of the opera we will now turn our attention.

(c) THE FRENCH SCHOOL (RAMEAU TO AMBROISE THOMAS).

Rameau—Divergence of methods—The successors of Gluck and Piccini—Méhul—Cherubini and Spontini—Meyerbeer—Auber—Gounod—Bizet—Reasons for the popularity of Faust and Carmen—Offenbach—Délibes and Lalo—Thomas.

The Italian Lully had no small share in founding what afterwards became a school of Grand Opera in Paris. As we have already said, he was so jealous of his fame that he brooked no rivals; so powerful was he, too, at Court that he was instrumental in keeping in the background every other aspirant to fame in his own particular line. So that we have to wait for some years before we find any notable name in France so far as operatic development is concerned.

Rameau is the next composer to be mentioned. His fame is not so great as that of his predecessor Lully, nor are his works so full of vivacity [Pg 82] and brightness. But he was a capable and skilled workman, and did much for French opera; his music is pompous and antique, nor does it compare in interest with that of the versatile Jean Jacques Rousseau, who wrote at least one work, Le Devin du Village, which enjoyed very many years of popularity.

The last-named work, moreover, did not pretend to belong to the genus “Grand Opera,” but was an “Opera Comique,” a branch of art in which the French have always excelled: indeed, from about this date (1760 circa) opera in France was diverging into two lines, one looking towards Grand Opera, and taking exalted, serious, or tragic themes for treatment, the other having the production of Comic Opera, with all its variety of scope and more human subjects of interest, as its aim; the course of these two must be followed, as indeed they ran to a great extent, side by side.

Much was due to the opening, in 1762, of the new “Opera Comique” Theatre in Paris, at which composers obtained a hearing, whose music was not fit for the Opera House proper, and who would not, moreover, have attempted work in the larger and more serious forms.

PUCCINI.

---

 

PICCINI.

[Pg 83]

Such men were Monsigny (1729-1817), Grétry (1741-1813), and Philidor (1726-1797). They were at work in Paris shortly after the Gluck-Piccini contest, and wrote operas which pleased by their simplicity, brightness, and tunefulness; all of them being of the order of the German “Singspiel”—i.e., with spoken dialogue. But it must be remembered that these composers, although they flourished subsequent to Gluck, had not imbibed his principles; nor did the light forms of opera which they, in the main, set themselves to write, leave much room for the exemplification of such. Consequently, when the operas of Mozart, constructed with artistic unity of principle and upon logical lines, began to obtain a hearing in Paris, such works as theirs soon dropped out of fashion.

Of more importance is Méhul, who, while still writing in the main for the Opera Comique, did so in a thoroughly artistic manner, taking Gluck as his model. He was a man of considerable originality, who made the curious experiment of leaving out the violins of the orchestra throughout the whole of his opera Uthal, with the idea of giving a cold, vague effect. However successful in that respect, it may be safely prophesied that this was done by Méhul for the first and the last time. His most popular work was Joseph, a story dealing [Pg 84] with the Bible narrative. One of its tunes is well known to pianists through the fact that Weber wrote a set of very interesting pianoforte variations upon it.

We must now turn our attention to two Italian composers, who belong to France through the fact of their having produced almost all their important works on the boards of either the Opera Comique or the Académie. Cherubini (1760-1842) wrote two or three great works, such as Les deux Journées (1800), Les Abencerages (1813), and Ali Baba (1833). The first-named, known in England as The Water Carrier, although classed as opera comique, approximates in its music more to what Beethoven wrote in Fidelio and Weber in Der Freischütz than to the ephemeral productions which were the fashion of the hour. Cherubini’s music is that of a man who preceded all composers of the “romantic” period, and therefore sounds antique and colourless to modern ears; nevertheless it is solid and good, and far superior to much of the same date.

Spontini (1774-1851) is spoken of by Naumann the historian in the following words:—“No other composer has succeeded in infusing into the music the spirit of heroism and glory which prompted the victorious exploits of Napoleon, in portrayal of which Spontini created [Pg 85] a kind of artistic expression, the influence of which has extended to the present day.” His chief works, replete with grandeur and magnificence, are La Vestale (1807), Fernand Cortez (written at the request of Napoleon in 1809 on a Spanish subject, partly with the idea of conciliating the Spanish), and Olympia (1819).

Other composers of the period include Boieldieu (1775-1834), who wrote the world famous La Dame Blanche, Isouard (1777-1818), Adam, Halèvy, Hérold (the composer of Zampa), and many another. The names of these composers pale before that Titan of French Grand Opera, whose advent upon the scenes we must now note—Meyerbeer.

Meyerbeer, a German by birth, having first seen the light of day in Berlin, and, withal of Jewish origin, produced operas in Italy, Germany, and France; his choicest efforts were lavished upon his operas for the Paris Académie, and his name is now always classed with French music. He had wonderful gifts, which he sometimes abused, for his music seeks the effective, irrespective of its artistic unity or the reverse.

In his lifetime he was lauded to the skies, and afterwards just as bitterly denounced. Wagner, who really learned much from him, speaks of [Pg 86] him as “a miserable music-maker, a Jew banker to whom it occurred to compose operas.” It must be admitted that Meyerbeer’s music is often vulgar and conventional, but his masterpiece, The Huguenots, contains some fine writing, and is specially noticeable for the clever and striking use made at several points in the progress of the story of Luther’s grand old hymn-tune, “Ein Feste Burg.” This chorale is used as a kind of leit-motif for the persecuted Huguenots, and forms a most effective foil to much of the other music of the opera.

The opening of the Chorale, from Meyerbeer’s “Les Huguenots.”

[Audio]

[Pg 87] In his most famous works, Robert le Diable (1831), Les Huguenots (1836), Le Prophète (1849), Dinorah (1859), and L’Africaine (1864), Meyerbeer shows his knowledge of effect, both vocally and orchestrally. Although over-elaborate and pompous, these operas are still performed at fairly frequent intervals, seeing that they are effective from a stage point of view, and also extremely gratifying to the singers, without descending to that inanity which so often characterizes operatic music written to please vocalists.

Passing over that eccentric genius, Hector Berlioz, who made a few bids for popularity in operatic composition, with remarkable lack of success, we must notice the brilliant Auber, whose light-hearted music filled the Opera Comique audiences with delight for many years. Although only known to us in England by the overtures which are so popular with sea-side orchestras and amateur bands, his operas are still popular enough on the Continent. He wrote both for the Grand Opera and the Opera Comique, his most lasting successes being achieved in the latter field; of the larger type, Masaniello is the best known, and is important as inaugurating a new career for French grand opera, in so far as it breaks from the classic model of Gluck and his followers and incorporates elements of the newer romance school. Of the [Pg 88] lighter works, Fra Diavolo is one of the most successful. Auber will be remembered not only for the vivacity and brightness of his music, but also for his fascinating and clever employment of the orchestra, for which he wrote with consummate ease and invariable excellence.

In Gounod we meet the composer of Faust, probably the most popular opera that the world has ever known. The reasons for its popularity are not hard to seek—an easily understood and well-known story, a succession of bright, melodious, and yet good musical numbers, and an amount of opportunity for the stage management beyond the average—all these things have tended to keep Faust constantly before the opera-goer.

Faust was produced in 1859, and although its orchestration may sound thin, and its melodies appear ultra-square to those who are accustomed to feast on the sonorous melody of Wagner, it yet pleases and is likely to please. It is the best of the Gounod operas, and quite outpaces other efforts by the same composer. Of these, Romeo and Juliet is the most often heard, but there are others, such as The Mock Doctor, Philémon and Baucis, and Mireille, which latter Gounod always said was his best opera.

OFFENBACH.

[Pg 89]

If Faust holds first place for popularity with the masses, it is closely followed in this respect by the Carmen of Bizet, a work of greater dramatic power, and offering much that is fresh in its scoring and its ingenious use of Spanish colouring and rhythms. The performance of Faust or Carmen is fairly certain to fill any provincial opera-house, and we find these works to be very often the mainstay of the touring companies. Indeed, statistics show the number of performances of these works to exceed that of all other operas, and in 1881 the number of times Carmen had been performed exceeded, as was ascertained in Berlin, that of all the representations of Weber and Wagner’s works put together. But Wagner’s music enjoys so large a share of public attention at the present time that the proportion of performances of these operas is probably now considerably less.

Contemporary with Gounod and Bizet was Jules Offenbach, a composer of comparatively low aim but with a certain amount of musicianly skill and a sure knowledge of effect. His operas are mostly comic, but in their day they enjoyed a furore by no means limited to the Parisian public. His output was enormous, nearly seventy operas standing to his name; of these the most famous is Orphée aux enfers; his most [Pg 90] ambitious effort, Les Contes d’Hoffmann, was only completed just before his death. Written only for the pleasure of the time, there is little of any lasting merit in his work.

Of higher standard, although his attention was in the main given to comic opera, is the music of Léo Délibes (1836-91), composer of the operas Le Roi l’a dit (1873), Lakmé (1883), and the ballet, Coppélia. Lalo (1823-92) is best known by his work, Le Roi d’ Ys, often staged and containing much good music. Victor Massé (1822-76) composed Paul et Virginie and many other works which gained popularity.

With brief mention of Ambroise Thomas, a musician much influenced by Gounod, who wrote two works at least of enduring quality, Mignon (1866) and Hamlet (1868) for the French opera, we must for the present leave this school of composition, returning to it anon to make mention of a number of brilliant men of talent still happily alive and at work to-day adding their quota to the fabric reared by their predecessors.

The Beggar’s Opera—Arne—Bishop—Balfe— Wallace—Goring Thomas—Sullivan—Living writers.

We have not much to boast of, so far as English operatic music is concerned, from the death of Purcell to about the middle of the nineteenth century. Purcell’s work, in its limited field, was excellent, but Handel’s powerful personality attracted so much attention to the Italian methods of composition that no other style found real favour for many years.

Opera, of course, existed in England, but it was of the Italian order: indeed, there was so much said against the unfortunate English language as a medium of vocal expression, that native talent had little or no chance of distinguishing itself. The only work that stands out during this period as being essentially English was a curious medley of songs and airs called the Beggar’s Opera produced in 1728, but even [Pg 92] this was arranged by Dr. Pepusch (a German)! The old genuine English tunes were, however, used in this, and its one or two successors, but the music is not of a serious type. The airs are simple and simply harmonized, and make no comparison with the Handel or Buononcini operas. Moreover, they are so short that we may quote the whole of one as an example.

Song from “The Beggar’s Opera,” arranged by Dr. Pepusch.

[Audio]

[Pg 93]

One of the first Englishmen to write Opera on the prevalent Italian model was Thomas Arne, whose chief work was Artaxerxes; he also wrote many masques or plays with incidental music. To us of to-day he is best known as the reputed author of “Rule Britannia,” and of the popular and tuneful setting of Shakespeare’s words, “Where the Bee sucks.”

The English style of composition of this period, which is in the main vigorous, manly, and bold, was not at all suited to the taste of the fashionable public, who were led to believe that the florid and effeminate Italian airs were the only tune method of operatic composition; consequently we are not surprised that native talent was [Pg 94] overlooked and ignored, and that we have nothing to show that will compare with what was going on in Italy, Germany, and France at a corresponding period.

Arne’s name is still remembered and his tunes sung, but the same can hardly be said of his followers and successors, Shield, Storace, Kelly and others. Although these men attempted dramatic composition in the style of Arne, they had no very definite model upon which to work, and they were more successful in the glee and madrigal than in stage work. We hear some of their songs now and then, but their influence on national opera was very slight indeed.

The eighteenth century is indeed a period of blank in English operatic history, and in spite of the work of Henry Bishop, who wrote effective concerted numbers, the earlier part of the nineteenth century has but little more to show. Bishop was content to leave the English “Ballad Opera” where he found it, although he had the ability to found a natural school of opera had he had the requisite energy and initiative.

The first English composer after Arne to produce anything attaining to real popularity, and to really deserve the name of opera, was Balfe, who, following an example set by John Barnett in his opera [Pg 95] The Mountain Sylph, produced in 1835 The Siege of Rochelle, and eight years later the well-known Bohemian Girl. That these operas are not of a particularly exalted type must be admitted; the airs are tuneful and mostly commonplace. There can be no comparison, for example, between the Bohemian Girl and Faust, because although both make a ready and immediate appeal, the artistic standard is much lower in the English than in the French work. But still the work of Balfe was an immense advance on the poorly constructed ballad opera that had hitherto found acceptance, and it helped to pave the way to higher ideals and better methods.

Type of Balfe’s melody “The Bohemian Girl.”

[Audio]

[Pg 96]

On about the same plane is Wallace, whose most popular work is Maritana—even more trying to listen to (for the cultured hearer) than the Bohemian Girl. These works, although poor and of no interest to the musician, yet play a part in the education of the people. Those quite unenlightened in the forms of opera can make a good start by at first listening to works of this type; and as their experience grows, so their taste will undoubtedly improve, and ripen to an appreciation of better things. The admiration of the crowd for such works as these, although now less than formerly, is not to be altogether condemned, seeing that it may in some cases be the means of raising the masses to an appreciation of something better and more musically satisfactory.

As musical education in England gradually improved, so we find our composers more artistic in their outlook and more solid in their work. The operas of Benedict (1804-85) and Macfarren (1813-87), although seldom performed now, are the output of talented and cultured musicians, who possessed, moreover, gifts of melody and dramatic characterization which must not be overlooked. Benedict’s best opera was The Lily of Killarney, produced in 1862. [Pg 97]

Greater heights still were reached by Goring Thomas, who wrote Esmeralda and Nadeshda, both works of merit, and from which excerpts are frequently given in our concert rooms.

Last amongst deceased English composers of opera may be named Arthur Sullivan, who wrote one serious opera, Ivanhoe (1891), and a host of delightful works of slighter scope to which it is hard to give a class-name. They are not quite of the opera comique type, nor do they partake of the farcical nature of “Opera Bouffe.” Perhaps a nondescript term such as “Light Opera” answers as well as any other to the charming, harmonious, graceful class of “Singspiel” which found such favour not only in England, but in the case of some works (such as The Mikado), also on the Continent. Their popularity, immense some twenty years ago, now appears to be somewhat on the wane; but they are still models of refinement and of good sound musicianship.

More serious attention has, however, been paid to opera in English by composers still living than by any named in this chapter. To these some consideration must be given, after we have noticed to some extent the Wagner operas and their influence.

Wagner’s early days—At Würzburg—At Königsberg—At Riga—At Paris—Rienzi—Dresden—Zurich—Munich —Triebschen—Bayreuth—Death—Wagner’s methods—The Flying Dutchman—Tannhäuser—Lohengrin—Tristan and Isolde—Die Meistersinger—The Ring—Parsifal—Wagner’s continued development.

The name of Wagner is the most interesting in all the annals of opera. We live too far away from the days of Lully and of Gluck to feel more than a shadowy interest in the personality of these men, although it was very marked; and in the case of more modern composers of pronounced character and distinctive achievement, such as Meyerbeer, Spontini, or Verdi, none can approach the great Richard Wagner in interest or in fascination. Since he is not only the most striking of opera composers, but also one whose work is judged, practically, by his efforts in this field alone of all musical art, we need have no hesitation in giving, in his case, a slightly more developed biographical notice than has been possible for men of less operatic repute. [Pg 99]

Richard Wagner, a junior member of a large family, was born in Leipsic in 1813 (May 22nd). His father died early, and his mother soon married again. Richard’s step-father, Geyer, was instrumental in introducing the boy to the stage, as he was an assistant at the Court Theatre at Dresden. Moreover, he perceived artistic instincts in the boy, and had him properly educated.

Wagner’s earliest dramatic effort was made at the age of fourteen, when he wrote a great tragedy à la Shakespeare; forty-two of his characters were slaughtered in the first four acts, so for the dénouement they were in part resuscitated as ghosts! These early attempts may cause us to smile, but in them may be seen the power to grapple with work on a large scale, which was so characteristic a feature of the man’s later life.

He struggled to master the pianoforte, very unsuccessfully, and also wrote the usual pianoforte sonatas and pieces. His education, proceeded with at Dresden and Leipsic, was of a very broken nature, and he was a bad pupil: his inclination being to study Weber and Beethoven rather than Latin and Greek; consequently he was always uneasy and desirous of escaping from the trammels of education. [Pg 100]

This he did when he was about nineteen years of age, taking a post as chorus master at the Würzburg theatre, and writing at the age of twenty his first opera, The Fairies; this work and its successor, Das Liebesverbot, need not detain us, except to record that the latter had two productions at Magdeburg in 1836, Wagner having gone there to act as conductor. Of these the first was a failure, the second was to an audience consisting of Wagner’s landlady, her husband, and a Polish Jew. After this the Magdeburg theatre retired gracefully into bankruptcy, and with it went the conductor.

Being attracted by a certain Wilhelmina Planer, who was acting at Königsberg, Wagner’s next steps were directed to this small town, where he married his lady-love, and also received the directorship of the opera. Bankruptcy fell to the lot of this theatre also, and Wagner shifted to Riga, where he found better work on a more secure footing.

Riga had a good opera-house, and so inspired the ambitious composer that he longed to scale greater heights, and set out for Paris. He went by sea to London, being well-nigh wrecked off the coast of Norway, and received impressions which are ably recorded for us in his setting of the story of the Flying Dutchman, composed shortly after the voyage. [Pg 101]

Crossing to Paris, Wagner lived for some time on the very verge of starvation; he had had introductions to Meyerbeer and other persons of influence in the French capital, but no one wanted the work of an unknown German composer, and he was forced to earn a living as best he could by arranging fantasias from popular operas, and turning out tuneful melodies for the cornet. His wife cheered him on and did her best, but misfortune dogged him, for a little theatre that agreed to produce Das Liebesverbot failed before the day of production came.

Undaunted, Wagner continued his work on the score of his first real opera Rienzi, which is founded on Lytton’s novel of the same name. Its music is modelled after the style of Meyerbeer, and of the grand opera of Paris. The Wagner of reform was not yet born: before his crusade could start, its author must be convinced of the futility of the older methods, and as a struggling composer he had at present as his great idea the problem of making both ends meet; consequently in Rienzi we do not find anything to specially arrest the attention, nor is the work looked upon by serious Wagnerians as worthy of consideration; it had its importance, however, in gaining Wagner a hearing, being produced at Dresden in 1842. [Pg 102]

Wagner went to Dresden to prepare the work for performance, and settled down there, taking up the duties of Hofkapellmeister. During his sojourn in the Saxon capital he produced The Flying Dutchman (1843) and Tannhäuser (1845). But in the latter year Wagner got himself into political troubles, and had to fly the kingdom. He settled down to a roving life in Paris and Switzerland, working at Lohengrin, which was produced by Liszt at Weimar in 1850.

While living at Zurich he sketched the libretto of the Ring, a gigantic cycle of four operas, of which more anon. In 1855 he came to England as the conductor of the Philharmonic Society’s concerts for the year. A good deal of disapproval with his methods and his work was experienced by him in this country, and he returned to Zurich to take up his work again there, settling down not only to the Ring, but also to the newly-conceived Tristan.

In 1860 Wagner’s period of exile was at an end, and he returned to German soil and composed the most German of his operas, Die Meistersinger. Shortly afterwards he went to dwell in Munich, beneath the eye of his patron, King Ludwig II. of Bavaria, who financed him until the end of his life. The monarch and the composer were [Pg 103] hand-in-glove with each other, so much so that in the year 1865 the latter had perforce to leave the Bavarian capital, returning to Swiss soil for six more years.

The well-known village of Triebschen, on the lake of Lucerne, was Wagner’s home during this period, during which most of the detail work of composition of the Ring was polished off and in part produced. In 1870, his first wife having died, Wagner married Cosima von Bülow, a daughter of his friend Liszt. This is the present Madame Wagner, who rules all at Bayreuth to-day with so firm a grip.

In 1872 Wagner returned to his patron, Ludwig II., who encouraged him to devise schemes to raise £45,000 to build a theatre where he liked, and after his own design; Bayreuth, a small Bavarian township, was pitched upon, and here a theatre was erected and opened in 1876. It was built with special reference to Wagner’s idea that every seat in the house should have a complete view of the stage, and should therefore be on a slightly higher level than the seat in front of it; and also that the orchestra should be out of sight beneath the stage. Special arrangements for the remarkably heavy stage scenes and mechanical devices necessary for the production of the Ring were also made, and all was successfully brought to a happy issue by three performances [Pg 104] of that cycle in full, under the well-known and happily living great Wagnerian conductor, Hans Richter.

After a further visit to England in 1877, Wagner returned to Bayreuth and wrote his last work, Parsifal, which was produced at the new Opera House in 1882. Early in the following year Wagner died at Venice, but his body was taken to his home, “Wahnfried,” and there interred. Bayreuth is to-day the goal of many pilgrims, people of all nationalities assembling for the performances of the Ring and other works, which generally take place during the summers of alternate years.

In our chapter upon the Reformers of Opera we noted the methods by which Wagner brought music into its proper sphere—namely, that of an adjunct to the work of the stage; we need not here recapitulate his theories of the absolute necessity of the music helping, rather than hindering, the dramatic action. Let it be borne in mind that he set before himself the object of eliminating all that was unworthy in the methods of his predecessors, and found himself unable, in the greater part of his work, to accept the set aria, duet, or other concerted movement, in their place substituting a continuous, rich, and fully-scored accompanied recitative, consisting very largely of a [Pg 105] series of melodies, heard singly or in combination; each melody, or leit-motif (which might, however, be also a chord-progression, or characteristic combination of instruments), being meant to bring to the mind of the listener, through his ear and brain, a definite train of thought.

Wagner did not by any means arrive at this conception straight away. Rienzi, with its spectacular effects and showy music, is an avowed copy of Meyerbeer and the grand opera methods. A step in advance was taken in The Flying Dutchman. The story is the well-known one of the sailor doomed to perpetually sail his vessel for ever and ever, being allowed to touch land once in seven years only; his chance of salvation being that some woman will voluntarily give herself to him; then only may he find peace. Senta, the heroine of the opera, offers to do this, in spite of her affection for her promised lover Erik; she clings to her determination, in spite of all entreaties of father (Daland) and lover, and throws herself into the sea as the Dutchman’s ship sails away. This proves her devotion, and the ship sinks; its wanderings now over at last.

The “Curse” Motive, associated with the “Flying Dutchman.”

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[Pg 106] The music in this early work is still roughly divided into solo, duet, and chorus, and shows only a few traces of the Wagner of the future; the fine overture, with its well-known passages depicting the angry, stormy waves and the other sea portions of the work, were largely inspired by Wagner’s own perilous voyage in 1838. It contains much fine music, but much also that is dull and unconvincing.

Tannhäuser deals with the story of the knight who leaves the world, his affianced bride, and his duties, for the unhallowed delight of Venus. Tiring at last of these, a chorus of pilgrims on their way to Rome moves him to penitence, and he returns to the court of the Landgrave of Thuringia, whose daughter Elizabeth welcomes back Tannhäuser her beloved. He, however, cannot refrain from boasting of the joys of his impious haunts, and is banished from the Court, to seek forgiveness at Rome. Elizabeth prays in solitude for him, but the pilgrims return without him, he eventually reappearing in despair, for the Pope has refused him absolution. He desires to return to Venus, but Wolfram, his friend, reminds him of Elizabeth, who has died of grief; her funeral procession passes, and Tannhäuser falls dead by her bier, just as messengers from Rome announce his ultimate forgiveness by the Pope. [Pg 107]

“Venusberg” Motives, “Tannhäuser.”

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To all concert goers the Tannhäuser music is familiar by the overture, based mainly on the pilgrims’ chorus and the Venusberg music, and by the song of Wolfram to the Evening Star. Throughout the opera the scoring is fine and effective, and the leit-motif makes a few definite appearances; it is a step towards Wagner’s goal, but only an early one. The music is continuous throughout each act, and less definitely split up than in the Dutchman; a good deal of the success of Tannhäuser depends on its spectacular opportunities, the grand scene in the second act with the majestic march offering special scope in this respect.

In Lohengrin we meet with one of the most popular of Wagner’s works: Lohengrin, an unknown knight, appears in a boat drawn by a swan, as it were by magic, to succour Elsa of Brabant, wrongfully accused of the murder of her brother by Frederic of Telramund, and Ortrud his [Pg 108] wife: he defeats Telramund in a duel, and Elsa bestows her hand upon him. Ortrud nurtures revenge, and suggests that Elsa has married a nameless adventurer. Elsa, although she has promised never to question Lohengrin as to his name, or origin, falls a prey to insinuation and to anxious curiosity: she elicits from him that he is son to Parsifal, guardian of the Holy Grail, and now his origin is known, the swan will come to bear him away once more. At his departure Ortrud suggests that the swan is none other than the brother whom Elsa is under suspicion of having made away with, but Lohengrin, by the power of the Holy Grail, restores her brother to her, and then sails away, leaving her for ever.

The mystical beauty of the “Grail” (see p. 28) theme, with its distinctive and original scoring for flutes and string harmonics, always throws the hearer, at the outset of the Prelude, into the right mood for this work. The music is not throughout at an equally high level, but there is a greater consistency than in the earlier works, and more use is made of guiding themes. The well-known “Bridal Chorus,” so often played at weddings, occurs in the second act, and adds greatly to the spectacular opportunities afforded; there is beautiful writing, also, in Elsa’s procession to the Cathedral, and in Lohengrin’s “Farewell.” [Pg 109]

Tristan and Isolde is an exposition of a legend which narrates how King Mark of Cornwall sends his trusty knight Tristan to bring back for him from Ireland a bride, Isolde. The knight and the maiden, under charm of a love potion administered by the maid Brangäne, fall in love with each other during the voyage, and on their return are neither of them faithful to King Mark. The followers of the latter surprise them, and Melot stabs Tristan, who is then conveyed to his castle in Brittany. Here he pines away in longing for Isolde, and dies just as she reaches the shore.

The combined themes of Tristan’s Sufferings and Isolde’s Love-longing.

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This opera has been described as one long love duet, with occasional interludes: there is very little action or movement, and it is the surpassing beauty of the music which accounts for the wondrous hold the work has upon the cultured public. It is the manifestation to the full [Pg 110] of Wagner’s ideas of the propriety of music for illustrative purposes, and the music is a continuous stream of surging sound, passion laden. The chromatic nature of the themes intensify the emotionalism sought to be conveyed: such music can never be popular in the ordinary interpretation of the word, but as an illustration of the musical expression of the beauty and passion of love it is unapproachable and inimitable.

The Mastersingers of Nuremberg is the one work of Wagner embodying touches of humour. It is sometimes called a comic opera, but this is to give it a misleading title: humorous it is in parts, but these are separated by long stretches of music of a serious and dignified nature.

The plot is concerned with the old guild of Mastersingers, entry to which was hedged about by numberless petty restrictions in the middle ages. Walther, a young knight, seeks entry, since it is only as a master singer that he can hope to win the hand of Eva, daughter to Pogner, who awards her as the prize to the composer and singer of the most beautiful song. Beckmesser, another candidate for the fair Eva, is also umpire to the guild, and thus has an unfair advantage over Walther when he sings the song which he hopes will gain him admission. [Pg 111] He breaks every possible rule, and is hopelessly rejected. But Hans Sachs, the shoemaker, is convinced of the beauty of Walther’s song, and induces the other masters to give him another hearing. Beckmesser breaks down in a comically hopeless attempt at the final competition, and Walther, with a beautiful and impassioned “Prize Song,” wins the coveted award.

“The Mastersingers.”

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The dignified overture, with its contrapuntal skill in combined themes, the songs sung by Walther at various periods in the development of the story, the curious and humorous lute music allied to Beckmesser’s quaint verses, the noble monologue for Hans Sachs, the dance of the apprentices, and the quintet of the principal characters which occurs late in the opera, are all features of musical interest. The story allows more scope than in the other music dramas for numbers in set musical form, with the result that we have several delightful excerpts from this work which are quite capable of effective performance apart from the stage setting. For the rest, the music is in Wagner’s advanced [Pg 112] manner, but often in lighter style than is usual with him; a natural sequel to the humorous nature of many of the scenes which the music portrays.

The cycle of four operas written on the same set of legends, Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried, and Gotterdämmerung, is conveniently spoken of as the “Ring.” The term is derived in the same way as is the word cycle or circle, and expresses a complete or rounded group of ideas: it is not in any way taken from the actual golden ring which figures largely in the plot as the desired object around which so much of the story centres. It is not possible here to go into detail as to the plots of these four operas; they may and should be studied before hearing the work, by means of one of the numerous handy volumes on the subject which have been published during recent years. Suffice it to say that each of the operas is a complete work in itself, the shortest being Rheingold, which is in one long act lasting about two hours: the longest is The Dusk of the Gods, which plays for about five hours. Die Walküre and Siegfried are each of them ordinary operas in three acts.

The legendary story of the Nibelungs forms the basis of the operas, and with it is combined the birth of Siegfried, child of earth-mortal and of war-maiden (Walküre), his life, death, and the general fall of the [Pg 113] gods. The conception of the “Ring” was somewhat fortuitous. Wagner started with the story of Siegfried; he then found that he must explain that by telling the story of Brünnhilde, the war-maiden. To make this clear, a prelude (Rheingold) was necessary for the explanation of the presence of the cursed gold which lies buried beneath the Rhine, and over which gods and mortals fight and contend.

In the Ring, Wagner’s use of leit-motiven and general principles reach their highest consummation. The music has its supreme moments of beauty, which are apparent to every auditor. For him who would sound these works to their fullest depths, study and concentrated thought are, in addition, necessary. In most cases, full enjoyment of the wondrous beauties and complexities of the scores will only come after hearing and much rehearing.

Wagner’s last opera, Parsifal, returns to the subject of the “Holy Grail,” and is entitled a Sacred Festival Drama. Its composer’s wish was that it should be performed at Bayreuth only, and for more than twenty years this request, backed also by copyright laws, was followed. Recently, however, in New York and in Amsterdam enterprising managers have, much against Madame Wagner’s wish, put it before their [Pg 114] patrons. According to all accounts it is less impressive in an ordinary theatre than amidst the quiet surroundings of Bayreuth, and it seems to be a work unsuited for general performance, and one that should only be given at a suitable time, in a suitable place, and before an audience thoroughly in sympathy with the subject. Its performances in England have so far been restricted to the concert-room, when its Prelude, the Good Friday music, the chorus of Flower Girls, and other excerpts are sometimes given.

The story deals with the dual relationship of the hero, Parsifal, in his service to the Holy Grail (guarded by Titurel and Amfortas), and in his contact with the temptations of the world, as exemplified by Klingsor, with his magic charms, and Kundry, his most beautiful and ravishing assistant. Parsifal maintains his spotless innocence, spite of all temptation, and eventually opens up a way of salvation to the fallen Amfortas, and to all the knights of the Grail whose faith had languished and faded.

The music throughout is of intensely devotional feeling and of a religious fervour, varied only by the strains that accompany Kundry and the Flower Girls: the use of the guiding theme is less prominent and important in this work than in the case of the Ring operas, nor are the principles of its composer so closely followed out. Its [Pg 115] sincerity, poetry, and depth always command our admiration and attention, even if the charm be not always so apparent as in some of the earlier operas.

Betwixt first and last in Wagner is a great gulf fixed: his was a nature that was content to go on only from strength to strength. Unlike Meyerbeer or Rossini, who were mostly content to write opera after opera upon the same general outline, the same broad pattern, Wagner always presses on towards a closer realization of an ideal form of work which he has set himself for achievement. Hence the cumulative power displayed in the wondrous series of music dramas of which we have attempted to give some slight account in this chapter.

Wagner’s influence—No mere copying—Modern “Melos”—Use of the orchestra—His harmony—Men of a younger generation—The Slavs.

The last of the revolutionists has left an indelible mark upon operatic history. As we have before said, there has been nothing since the time of Wagner which can lay claim to having advanced the art of opera, nothing new has been done, and it is not easy to see on what lines anything fresh can be attempted.

But composers have not been slow to take advantage of the new methods introduced by that Colossus among opera writers, whose innovations have altered the whole aspect of things, both in stage management, in the wedding of suitable music to a really dramatic libretto, in the use of the leit-motif, and in the writing of melos, accompanied by characteristic and definitive use of the orchestra. [Pg 117]

It is not too much to say that every composer of opera, since Wagner’s later works became known, has come under the influence of the great master, consciously or unconsciously. It is not inferred that modern musicians have taken the system of guiding themes and used them systematically in the manner in which they are used in the Ring: this has indeed been attempted, sometimes on quite a large scale, and sometimes with success, more often with failure; for mere imitation of Wagner’s methods have always spelt failure. The systematic use of guiding themes has, however, become common, not only in dramatic music, but even in abstract music, and occasionally in the oratorio, as witness Elgar’s Apostles.

But whether the guiding-theme plan has been adopted or no by late nineteenth century composers of opera, there is no doubt that all have been influenced by the melos and accompanied recitative of Wagner. The new, richly-constructed musical dialogue, if we may so term it, which he was the first to treat in so characteristic and individual a manner, became a new tool in the hands of composers. The tool is one which turns out attractive work and has been plentifully laboured with: its results are apparent everywhere, in the modern dramatic passages [Pg 118] that differ as widely from the Mozartean recitatives as they in turn do from those of Scarlatti. The main difference is due to the polyphonic blending of themes in the orchestral accompaniment: they may or may not be guiding themes, but in any case they are superimposed to a much greater extent than was the case in the simple chordal recitative sections of earlier days.

Wagner’s use of the orchestra, too, unquestionably led the way for much of the modern scoring; the rich completeness of a whole family of instruments of the same timbre has found many admirers, and modern orchestration has a resonance and a roundness which is hard to find in music prior to his time. The tendency to-day is to use more and more instruments, and to group them according to their characteristic tone colour, thus offering a palate of greater scope and variety.

It must be borne in mind, too, that Wagner’s simultaneous use of many themes brought into prominence the possibility of the use of many uncommon harmonies. We will not say he invented these, because it is difficult, if not impossible, to find any that have not occurred in the writings of that marvellous contrapuntist, J. S. Bach; but whereas in the older master their use is fortuitous and rare, they become in [Pg 119] Wagner of frequent and designed occurrence—hence the ear accepts them eventually, although sometimes at first repelled. These many new harmonies are part of the legacy bequeathed to a younger generation by the Bayreuth maestro.

We have seen how Verdi, the greatest of Wagner’s contemporaries, was influenced by the German composer, and how his whole style underwent transformation as he imbibed deeper and deeper of the fountain of new methods and ideas which sprung from the study of such works as the Ring. Nor was Verdi alone of those of whom we have already spoken in being thus influenced, although the traces of such influence are not everywhere so apparent. Gounod, Ambroise Thomas, Sullivan, and many another wrote works during and after Wagner’s lifetime which owe at least something to what their composers had learned from him.

But it is only natural that fuller results should be seen in the men of a younger generation, men happily alive and at work to-day, in various countries and of various nationalities. To these we may now devote a little attention. That they have by no means slavishly copied Wagner is of course readily admitted; at the same time it cannot be maintained [Pg 120] that they have in any way advanced upon his work, and their success is largely dependent upon their ability to seize upon the chief merits of his models and to combine with them some of their own particular features of temperament, and of their individuality of style.

The chief modern composers of opera living to-day are—

Before saying more about these composers, whom we can conveniently treat under the headings of the different nationalities to which they belong, we may turn aside a moment for a consideration of a school of composition that possesses peculiar and characteristic features of its own—namely, that of the Russian and Slav races. The most prominent of its representatives have lived and worked since the time of Wagner, but [Pg 121] the strong national characteristics of the Slavs have prevented his influence from being so apparently marked as it is in the case of composers of the more western nations. The opera writers of this school are, in many cases, still living, but as death has taken from us Glinka and Tchaïkovsky, and more recently Dvŏrák, it will be as well to treat of the Slav composers in a separate chapter, making some slight endeavour to grasp some outline of the distinctive features which are theirs, and which colour all their compositions, whether for the stage or otherwise.

Early Russian composers—Glinka—Dargomijsky— Borodin—César-Cui—Tchaïkovsky—Polish opera—Bohemian opera— Dvŏrák—Other European countries.

The operas of the Russians, Poles, and Bohemians, in so far as they possess points of individual interest, do so by virtue of their natural characteristics. It is unnecessary, therefore, to trace back the history of Opera in these countries to its foundation, as we should find that, in the main, it was a borrowed and foreign art, employing only methods that had derived their origin elsewhere, generally in Italy.

Although, therefore, we find that opera in Russia was produced as early [Pg 123] as 1737 on the Italian model, and even in the vernacular with some attempt at national style in 1756, these early attempts soon gave way before the popular style of light Italian pieces, and the work of such composers as Volkov, Titov, and Cavos may be passed over as unimportant in the history of opera. Even the music of that much greater musician, Anton Rubinstein, so far as his dramatic work goes, is a negligible quantity, in so far as it is Teuton in style and without distinction or national signification.

The acknowledged pioneer in this school was Glinka, who wrote but one work of lasting worth, A Life for the Czar. This opera, however, laid such hold upon the Russian peoples as to have become the most popular opera in their repertoire, and we are told that it is played invariably for the opening night of the season both at Moscow and at St. Petersburg. It is intensely national in subject, and although the music shows many traces of Italian influence, which is not surprising considering its date of production (1836), there is still much that has its origin in national song and folk theme. Glinka afterwards wrote and produced a still more national, but less successful, work entitled Ruslan and Ludmilla. [Pg 124]

Glinka’s one popular opera is not only important in itself; it is still more worthy of notice as the stimulating motive which enabled a large number of younger Russians to write works of a similar nature. It must be conceded that to Englishmen the names of these men are hardly anything but names; yet in their own country they mean much more to the people than do the names of our English composers to the majority of us in this country. Unfortunately, intense enthusiasm and natural fervour has by no means found its way at present into English music. The extremely intimate nature of the music of the operas written by such men as Dargomijsky, Serov, César-Cui, Rimsky-Korsakoff, Borodin, Tchaïkovsky, and Arensky, while making for their popularity in the country of their production, is a factor against their performance in England, where the folk-songs and themes introduced would be unknown and unappreciated.

Dargomijsky, who has been claimed as the founder of modern Russian opera, wrote two fairly well-known works, The Water-Sprite and The Stone Guest, the story of the latter being closely allied to that of Mozart’s Don Giovanni. In his operas Dargomijsky seems to have been more or less unconsciously working on the lines of Wagner in the construction of his intermediary recitative sections, and his [Pg 125] whole method is one of greater advancement than that of Glinka. His chief follower was Moussorgsky (1839-81), a composer much influenced also by Wagner. The latter was also an able literary critic; his most famous work was entitled Judith.

Borodin, a capable chemist as well as a skilled musician, has a name for the composition of clever examples of chamber music. To the operatic repertoire he contributed Prince Igor, a work following Italian methods to some extent, but still possessing much that stamps its Russian origin. It is one of the few members of its class which is bright and cheerful in tone, with an absence of that pessimism which is the prevalent feature of so much Russian music.

César-Cui has composed Ratcliff, Angelo, The Flibustier, and five other works, the last mentioned having been produced in Paris. Cui is still living (1909), and is well known for his able literary articles and contributions to the Russian journals and magazines. Rimsky-Korsakoff (born in 1844) has written several works, among them Pskowitjanka and The May Night. Up to the present, although some of his orchestral music has found representation in England, we have not yet had any opportunity of passing criticism upon his operatic flights. [Pg 126]

The name of Tchaïkovsky is well enough known in the concert rooms of England, and, indeed, of the world. Of all Russian composers his is the name to conjure with, and although one cannot pass unrestrictedly favourable criticism upon all that he composed, we undoubtedly owe to him a very great deal that is surpassingly rich, beautiful, and likely to endure. His genius, however, did not shine at its brightest in the theatre, and although, like the Bohemian Dvŏrák, he was attracted again and again to the stage, his work has not met with such universal success as it has done in other spheres.

In England only one opera of his, Eugene Oniegin, has been produced; but several more fine works proceeded from his fertile pen, some of them still very popular in their own country. The chief are The Oprichnik (1872), Eugene Oniegin, Joan of Arc (1880), Mazeppa (1883), and The Enchantress (1887). Tchaïkovsky attempted many styles, but his individuality was always apparent, sometimes with good results and sometimes not. When the subject of the opera was in accordance with the general trend of his thought, the result was a felicitous one, but he holds a lower place as a writer of opera than is his possession as a creator of symphony, song, and tone poem. [Pg 127]

The sister country of Poland has at present made little claim to achievement in the opera house: the national dances, the polonaise, valse, mazourka, etc., have been utilized by Glinka very effectively, but the only record of Polish opera to hand is the work of the great pianist, Paderewski, whose Manru has recently come to light. Its music is described as German rather than Polish, and it is not likely to found a new school of composition.

Of more interest is the national opera of Bohemia, with its headquarters at Prague. Among its earlier composers we find the names of Tomaschek, Nepravnik, and Fibich. More important than these is Smetana (1824-84), who settled in Prague in 1866, at a time when national freedom of thought and language was gaining position in Bohemia. Smetana took advantage of the enthusiasm with which everything national was greeted, and by his incorporation of the folk-songs of the people into his operas, introduced to his country a new form of opera which at once took root and flourished there. The melodies he chose were dear to the hearts of the people; moreover, they were simply and yet effectively treated, with due knowledge of and consideration for stage-effect; consequently Smetana’s operas are in Bohemia looked upon as the realization of a national ideal. We know little of them in this [Pg 128] country, save that the overture to the Bartered Bride is a popular item in the repertoire of our orchestral societies; but he wrote many other works, such as Dalibor, Der Kuss, and Libusa.

His pupil and follower, Dvŏrák, whose name as a composer of symphonies and chamber music is an exalted one also wrote much for the stage; indeed, just before his death a new opera by him, Armida, was produced in Prague. But his success, although so great and well deserved in other fields, is not comparable with that of Smetana, nor has he ever in the same way touched the hearts of the people. Other works by him are King and Collier (1874), Wanda (1876), Der Bauer ein Schelm (1877), Demetrius (1882), and Rusalka (1901). His operatic essays are unknown in this country, nor are any works of other Bohemian composers offered for our pleasure in England so far as the theatre is concerned. There is, however, a promising young group of composers working at Prague, of whose doings we may some day hear more than at present.

It may here be convenient to glance at the conditions that govern opera in some of the other European countries, which give evidence of a certain amount of activity; this has, in the main, confined itself up to the present within its own borders. The Scandinavian composers, such [Pg 129] as Gade, Grieg, Sinding, etc., whose names are world known in other fields, have nothing to show us in respect of opera. The opera houses of Christiania and Copenhagen are active and busy, but they produce little indigenous opera, nor does the fame of that little travel very far. The Spaniards and Portuguese also have no claim to fame as composers of opera, the name of Arrieta, we take it, being little known, although he is the most famous of Spanish musicians so far as dramatic writing is concerned. Interest in the opera of these countries is the work of the specialist, rather than of the general writer; and we now turn to the conditions of opera as they obtain to-day in England and in the sister countries of Germany, France, and Italy.

Boito—His interesting personality— uccini—Mascagni—Leoncavallo—Cilea—German composers—Goldmark and Humperdinck—The French school—Saint-Saëns—Massenet—Bruneau— English composers—Stanford—Mackenzie—Cowen —Corder—Bunning, etc.

To-day the art of operatic composition appears to be returning for its best results to its much loved home, Italy: it is the young Italian composers, among all its devotees of all nationalities, who appear to be putting forth the strongest work. Contemporary English, French, and German operas, with a few notable exceptions, are rarely heard beyond the borders of the land which gives them birth, but the works of Mascagni, Puccini, and Leoncavallo find a home in every opera-house.

At the outset of our review of living Italian opera composers we meet the strange figure of Arrigo Boito, more famous for his one completed opera than are many composers who have endowed the world with dozens of [Pg 131] such works. The charm of his personality has aided its success, while the ill fortune which dogged its birth and its intimate relationship to a great home have also contributed to its world-wide fame.

Not that Boito’s Mefistofele is a work in the repertoire of every opera-house; rather, its performances seem to be limited in number, and yet all the world knows of its composer as the capable litterateur and musician who, amidst intense excitement, brought his Mefistofele before the Milanese public at La Scala in 1868, and by the novelty of its form and musical treatment so displeased a very large number of his would-be admirers, that he fell from the height of popularity to which expectation had elevated him almost to the depth of extinction so far as his musical efforts were concerned. Mefistofele has been rewritten; it was a work in advance of its time, and honour must be given to Boito for the artistic beauty of his conceptions, and for his courage and skill in the wielding of them to the ultimate conviction of an unwilling public. This fascinating but tantalizing composer still stimulates interest by the fact that he keeps two other and newer operas, Nero and Orestiade, in his desk, and refuses, at any rate for the present, to bring them to the light. He has received the degree of Doctor of Music from the [Pg 132] University of Cambridge, and at a concert given to celebrate the event in 1893 the author had the pleasure of taking part in a performance of the Prologue to Mefistofele under his bâton. Verdi’s last two operas are to libretti by Boito.

Commencement of Vocal Scherzo from Boito’s “Mefistofele.”

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We now come to a composer whose music, or part of it, at any rate, must have been heard by everybody; we speak of Pietro Mascagni, whose most famous opera, entitled Cavalleria Rusticana, is probably the most popular modern work in the operatic repertoire. It was produced in 1890, and soon attained to fame; this was due, to some extent, to the introduction of a new device—namely, the performance of an orchestral [Pg 133] intermezzo dividing the work into two parts, the curtain remaining up and disclosing an empty stage (a street scene). Possibly the original intention in leaving the curtain up was to prevent the buzz of conversation which always accompanies its fall, and precludes the possibility of careful attention to the music; but in this instance the music is so melodious, tuneful, and cleverly scored that it assured the success of the opera. Succeeding works from the same pen, L’Amico Fritz, I Rantzau, William Ratcliff, Iris, and others, have not yet found equal success.

Very frequently coupled upon the same play-bill with Mascagni’s Cavalleria is the short modern Italian opera, I Pagliacci (The Strolling Players), the work of Leoncavallo, and written upon much the same general lines as its forerunner; its prologue, for a solo baritone, is popular in our concert halls; in the opera it occurs as part of the overture, the singer pushing his way through the curtain, and retiring again after his performance, before the stage scene is actually disclosed. Leoncavallo has written many other works, but his chief distinction of later date has been that upon him has fallen the choice of the German Emperor to write a typically German opera on the subject of Roland of Berlin. The work was produced in Berlin in [Pg 134] 1905, but without giving full satisfaction, the general opinion being that a German composer should have been chosen to clothe so essentially national a subject with music, and that Leoncavallo’s attempt was uninspired, grandiose, and lacking in the elements of beauty.

Other followers of Mascagni are Giordano, composer of Andrea Chenier; Spinelli, chiefly known by A Basso Porto; and Franchetti. More famous than these is Francesco Cilea, a young composer of promise, whose one work that has been submitted to English audiences, Adriana Lecouvreur, contains music of great beauty and charm. The method of Mascagni is closely followed, even to the introduction of a tuneful and charmingly scored intermezzo, but there is independence of melodic phrase and real grip in the music. Adriana was originally produced at Milan in 1902, and was staged [Pg 135] at Covent Garden during the autumn visit of the San Carlo Company two years later.

Undoubtedly the greatest of the modern Italian composers is Giacomo Puccini, who has made himself famous not merely by one opera but by several. His earlier works, Manon Lescaut, etc., hardly represent him at his best, although they contain much fine music; but in La Bohème (produced in 1896), in La Tosca, and most of all in Madama Butterfly (1904), this clever musician has found himself and has risen to great heights. He is most happy in the way in which his music paints the situation to be depicted, and he has a most wonderfully ready power of melody. The continuous use of distinctive and rhythmic melody and the absence of any definite characterization by means of the leit-motif differentiates his work very largely from that of the Wagner School—it is altogether on a lighter basis, but the melody has an irresistible attractiveness, which accounts largely for the favour which his operas are finding at the present day. Such straightforward lyrical writing as the theme which usually accompanies Sharpless the Consul (in Madama Butterfly),—

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[Pg 136] or the more tenderly impassioned themes, such as this one from the love duet which closes the first Act of the same opera,

Love Duet, from “Butterfly.”

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will convey some idea of the style which this composer adopts. His next promised opera is to be upon an American subject, The Girl of the Golden West.

LEONCAVALLO.

[Pg 137]

Germany to-day can hardly be held to have produced such an array of familiar names, but that of Humperdinck has become famous through his setting of the delightful fairy tale Hansel and Gretel. There is, however, still living a senior to Humperdinck in the person of Goldmark, whose Cricket on the Hearth has been performed in this country. Goldmark was born as long ago as 1830, and became famous by his opera, The Queen of Sheba, produced in Vienna in 1875: he has penned much music, and other operas, but the two above named are his best known contributions to operatic literature.

More interesting, because his fairy opera has been seen by almost everyone, is Humperdinck, who has skilfully applied Wagnerian methods to opera on a comparatively light subject. The story of Hansel and Gretel, from Hans Andersen, is worked up into a charming plot, and if some of the incidents seem, upon the modern stage, somewhat trivial and childish, the music is so perfect in form and matter that the ear is delighted throughout. The use of folk-songs and simple melodies which [Pg 138] appeal to all, is supplemented by a wonderfully capable and polyphonic use of the orchestra, which shows the master hand in every bar of the score.

From Humperdinck’s “Hansel and Gretel” Overture, showing three important Motives.

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Hansel and Gretel can be appreciated alike by the smallest child [Pg 139] and by the skilled musician, and therein lies its great charm, for much study must usually precede appreciation of work so elaborate and complex. Humperdinck’s succeeding works, several in number, have not risen to the same level, either of beauty or of popularity: his recent opera, Die Heirat wider Willen, was produced with a fair measure of success under Strauss at Berlin in April 1905.

Richard Strauss, the well-known composer of orchestral tone poems, has made several bids for fame in opera: his early works, such as Guntram and Feursnot, have not called so much attention as have Salome, produced at Dresden in 1906, and the Elektra staged in 1909 (January 25th). Strauss writes very boldly, with the most cacophonous lack of blend between orchestra and voice, as this example, culled at random from Elektra, will show.

Fragment from Strauss’ “Elektra” (1909).

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[Pg 140]

Other living composers of German opera are Max Schillings; Weingartner, the great orchestral conductor; Siegfried Wagner, son of the great master; Nessler, composer of The Trumpeter of Sákkingen [Pg 141] (a wonderfully popular work, which, however, is not of the first rank), and many others whose fame may or may not be enduring. Modern German opera since Wagner has hardly, with the exception of Hansel and Gretel, the distinction, power, and originality which we find in the followers of the young Italian school.

More famous are the men of the French school, the natural followers of Gounod, Ambroise Thomas, and their fellows. Progress is noticeable from the type of music which prevails in Faust in the works of such composers as Saint-Saëns, Massenet, and Bruneau, and the influence of Wagner is quite apparent. But in French opera the traditions which belonged to the “Académie” of old, and which have descended to the more modern “Grand Opera,” combine with a certain Gallic grace and charm to preserve individuality to this school.

Foremost among French composers in every branch of the art is that versatile and gifted man, who has just missed becoming a genius, Camille Saint-Saëns. Like Boito, he possesses an interesting personality, prominent amongst his characteristics being a habit he has of suddenly disappearing for months together from the eyes of a world of which he has grown temporarily weary. He will then come back from [Pg 142] some half civilized or totally barbarous district of Africa or elsewhere, bearing with him piles of manuscript, which soon finds a ready publisher. The music so composed often bears some impress of the surroundings amidst which it has been penned, which adds in no small degree to its acceptance by the public. Saint-Saëns has written many operas both for the Grand and the Comique stage without any very marked success: the work best known in England is Samson and Delilah, a dramatized version of the Bible story. As such, by the censorship of stage plays that exists in England, this was not allowed to be performed in its original condition until the year 1909; but it then became as popular as it is on the Continent, where its beautiful and impassioned music finds many admirers. Saint-Saëns’ Henry VIII. is, of his other works, the best known. The list also includes Proserpine, Ascanio, Phryne, and Les Barbares. His last work is L’Ancètre, produced at Monte Carlo in 1906.

Jules Massenet is the author of many operas, of which mention may be made of Le Roi de Lahore, Hérodiade, Manon, Le Cid, Esclarmonde, Werther, Thaïs, La Navarraise, and Le Jongleur de Notre Dame. Hérodiade [Pg 143] is really a dramatic version of the Bible story of St. John and Salome. By a few trivial alterations of names and lines it was so altered as to pass the Lord Chamberlain’s censorship, and was produced at Covent Garden in 1904. The general atmosphere of the sacred subject, however, still hovered over it, and to English taste it was unpleasing and unpopular: it is perhaps the best of the Massenet operas, Manon and La Navarraise approaching it nearest in popular esteem. His latest success is Le Jongleur de Notre Dame, produced at Monte Carlo in 1902.

A most earnest and serious minded composer, who more closely follows Gluck and Wagner in his desire for operatic truth, is Alfred Bruneau, one of the finest of French musicians. From the first his style has been revolutionary, and owing to crudities somewhat hard to accept; but while sometimes musically deficient, his dramatic grip and sincerity of purpose are so strong that there is doubtless a future before his operas. Le Rêve, L’Attaque du Moulin, Messidor, and L’Ouragan are the names given to his chief works, the third named of these being perhaps the best. Bruneau was fortunate in securing the services of the late M. Zola as his librettist, several prose-poems by the great novelist having been entrusted to his care. [Pg 144]

André Messager has chiefly distinguished himself by a charming light work, La Basoche, which has had much attention at English hands. Dubois, Paladihle, and others are still at work in the field of French opera, but perhaps its most prominent modern representative is Gustave Charpentier, whose opera Louise (1900) has made a great hit, and shows possession of great gifts from which much more may in the future be expected. Vincent d’Indy, another of the younger school, is the composer of a fairly successful work, Fervaal.

Claude Debussy, a composer who has written an amount of successful music of an unique kind, in that it employs mostly a scale of whole tones, rather than one of tones and semitones, produced in 1902 an opera based on Maeterlinck’s Pelleas et Melisande. This original and distinctive work has become highly popular, and was performed at the Covent Garden season of 1909. Here is a fragment showing the composer’s curious use of whole tones.

Debussy’s “Pelleas and Melisande.”

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[Pg 145]

With the exception of Sir Hubert Parry, all the chief living composers of English nationality have made a bid for fame in Grand Opera, but with only partial success. Those whose efforts appear to have led to the best results are Stanford and Mackenzie. Unfortunately for us, there is in this country less opportunity for operatic composers than in almost any other: works when written have little chance of being staged, unless perhaps semi-privately. Occasionally the management of the Grand Opera invites a work from an English musician, but even then it is sometimes coupled, as was the case with Bunning’s Princess Osra, with the condition that it be performed in a foreign language. Opera is not the hobby and delight of the man in the street, as it is in many Continental countries, and the works that find favour [Pg 146] at Covent Garden seem to be chosen according to the wishes of the boxholders and members of the syndicate. After all, it is these that supply the sinews of war, and therefore the English public at large has no just cause for complaint. If the English public will come forward and support national opera schemes, as it is constantly being invited to do, there would be some hope for English opera composers. Under present conditions opportunity is infrequent, although when it comes it is generally seized by those concerned.

Undoubtedly the pluckiest attempts to wrest fame from grudging audiences in this respect has been made by Sir Charles Stanford. Undeterred by failure, indifferent success, and lack of appreciation, he has made repeated efforts in opera. His earliest were in Germany, where The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan (Hanover) and Savonarola (Hamburg) came to light. Later on came the Canterbury Pilgrims, produced at Covent Garden in 1884. Some success attended the last-named, but it was many years before it found a companion, Shamus O’Brien not appearing until 1896. Stanford is an Irishman, and the subject particularly suited his individual temperament. The work, confessedly less in the grand opera style than that of the romantic comic opera, enjoyed great favour for a short time, and contained charming music. Of still more importance is his last born, a version of Much Ado about Nothing, staged at Covent Garden in 1901, the music of which, although unequal, contains some fine moments.

Photo]  [Russell & Sons.

SIR A. C. MACKENZIE.

[Pg 147]

Mackenzie’s operas are Colomba (1883), The Troubadour (1886), and The Cricket on the Hearth. The last-named still awaits a hearing, and promises to be of much interest. A lighter work of the Savoy type was also written by this composer, and had a good run. A bid for popularity, in the shape of a small and trifling but musically interesting operetta, produced at one of our largest music halls in 1905, was also made by Mackenzie. Of such innovations as this, and their purport, we may say more anon.

Frederic Cowen seems to have lost heart, so far as operatic enterprise is concerned. The list of his essays in this form of art are The Lady of Lyons (1876), Thorgrim (1890), Signa (1893), and Harold (1895). The general opinion of these is, that while containing much music that is genuinely charming and beautiful, there is not enough dramatic virility or depth of idea to carry so exacting a work as a grand opera to a successful issue.

Mr. Frederick Corder has completed many operas, only one of which, Nordisa, has been produced, and this as long ago as 1886. Mr. [Pg 148] Hamish MacCunn, a Scotch composer, is answerable for the music to Jeanie Deans and Diarmid. Miss Ethel Smyth is one of the rare instances of a member of the fairer sex rising to any point of distinction in operatic composition: her one-act work Der Wald (“The Wood”)[3] achieved considerable success in England a few years back, and her music is held in still higher esteem in Germany, where her last opera, The Wreckers, has had great success.

Princess Osra, produced at Covent Garden in 1902, is the work of a young Englishman, Herbert Bunning, who simulates the modern Italian method, and from whom more may be heard ere long. Mr. de Lara has produced The Light of Asia, Amy Rosbart, and Messaline, while other workers in this direction may include Mr. Somerville, Alick McLean, Edward German, and Franco Leoi. [Pg 149]

English opera suffers much from lack of opportunity, still more from absence of individuality. Were English composers able to graft on to their style some trace of natural characteristics, as we find the Russians and Bohemians of to-day have done, there is little doubt but that their productions would command a greater interest and a more enduring success.

Subsidized opera—Opera an educative factor—Objection to subsidies—Advantages—English opera—Opera companies—Covent Garden—The Royal Opera Syndicate—History of opera in this country—Travelling companies—The Carl Rosa Company—The Moody-Manners Company—The outlook.

In England we stand, so far as operatic enterprise is concerned, on a different footing to most of the Continental nations, in so far as there is no Government support nor State aid to Opera. It is a care in the economy of most of the European Governments that an annual grant should be made towards the expenses of the Opera House. The subsidies so granted vary in different countries and in different towns, but the main idea in all cases is the same, to provide a certain amount of money so that there may be an opera-house more or less always open, to which the people may go on payment of quite small sums and witness really good performances. [Pg 151]

In such countries as these, Opera is looked upon not so much as a luxurious amusement as an educational factor, capable of instilling artistic ideas into the plebeian mind, and in common with picture galleries, public statues, and beautifully kept gardens, inculcating an appreciation of the beautiful in art.

In Paris, for example, a sum of £32,000 is given annually for the support of the Grand Opera House, while a further sum of £12,000 is granted for the Opera Comique, the deficit arising from the numerous expenses incurred for singers, orchestra, stage hands, etc., being met by these grants. As a quid pro quo the Government demands the distribution of free seats to certain persons and societies to a very large proportion of its subsidy. This may or may not represent a hardship to the management, for whereas the seats thus given might possibly have been all sold, it is more than probable that on the majority of occasions there would have been much spare room which is thus filled.

Besides the objections that returns in the shape of gratuitous entrances must be allowed there is the further and more serious one, that the reins of power sometimes fall into the hands of inartistic and unmusical persons. This is less likely to happen in a city of culture, [Pg 152] such as Paris, than in some of the smaller German towns, when the control of such matters is left to the Intendant of the place, who holds despotic sway and works matters according to his own sweet will. So that it often happens that a certain class of opera, or a certain little particular clique of singers, obtains a hearing to the exclusion of almost all else.

But these possible dangers can hardly be said to counteract the benefits which are conferred by the regularly paid subsidy: the money paid assures a large portion of the working expenses, and the management of the Opera House knows that the doors will not have to be closed for lack of the sinews of war, but that all the year round performances may be given, if not daily, at least at very frequent intervals. Such vexed questions as control of the repertoire and of the choice of singers, of course, may and do occur; but so far as the man in the street is concerned, there is always the opportunity presented of hearing opera, of hearing it well done, and of extending his knowledge and critical power, to say nothing of the addition to the artistic pleasures of his life.

In England we have no State aid, with the result that we are not in a position to be able to hear opera all the year round. During the three months of the “Grand” season the prices are high and the hours somewhat [Pg 153] prohibitive. The desirability of some Governmental subsidy has been warmly advocated by Sir Charles Stanford and others, and were such an amount as that granted by the French for their Opera House given to Covent Garden, there is little doubt that we should be able to hear Grand Opera whenever we liked to go, at moderate prices.

This undoubtedly would be a great advantage to the general musician, and to some members of the public, but it has yet to be shown that there is a public willing to gather in sufficient numbers to fill a large house for the greater number of the nights of the year: it would be quite possible to have the money and the house opened, and yet no audience sufficient to justify a performance. It seems a little doubtful whether, at present, the English lay mind is quite ready for the scheme: indeed it is to be feared that an appreciation of opera is not sufficiently wide-spread through the rank and file of the English people to justify any such scheme for the time being. Free tickets to students, and the like, in return for a grant, might do something towards filling the house, but unless the general public would evince sufficient interest in the scheme to come nightly in large numbers, the purpose in view would be defeated. We do not appear to have the natural [Pg 154] inborn love of opera so common amongst continental peoples, and until our national education is more advanced it is not very likely that a State grant would be of ultimate practical value.

Operatic enterprise in England, then, depends upon private initiative: this means, of course, that there are different bids for fortune made from time to time by various companies and syndicates. This has been so for many years, even so long ago as the days when Handel made a venture on his own account, in opposition to the band of wealthy titled folk who set up Buononcini to oppose him: and in so far as rivalry is provocative of effort, the existence of different companies makes for good. One body in England is, however, almost unique in being able to spend freely on singers, orchestra, and accessories.

This body is the Royal Opera Syndicate, formerly generally known as the Royal Italian Opera, the scene of whose labours is Covent Garden. Here another point, in which we differ from the Continental nations, must be noticed, and that is, that we have in England no Opera House. The Grand Opera of our London season is held at Covent Garden, which is nothing but an ordinary theatre, although a very large one; whereas in France and Germany the Opera House is practically sacred to the performance of [Pg 155] opera. We have no building of a similar nature. Covent Garden, for instance, is the scene of musical festivals, sometimes of promenade concerts, of fancy dress balls, and various other functions, it being devoted to opera only at certain seasons of the year. The Royal Opera Syndicate runs a season of Grand Opera from the end of April until the end of July—a three months’ season, performances being given nightly.

For financial support the syndicate depends upon subscribers, who take boxes and stalls for the whole of the season: the boxes, prices for which are very high, are taken by the King and Court, wealthy and titled people, and also wealthy and untitled people; in short, subscribers to the opera are fashionable, and members of “society” rather than musical. Seeing, however, that they provide the backbone of the enterprise, it is only natural that the syndicate should feel bound to consult their tastes; it thus happens that we rarely get opera in the vernacular, society preferring the words in either French, German, or Italian. To much the same cause is due the somewhat lamentable fact that opera by English composers rarely obtains a hearing. Besides the subscribers for boxes, etc., ordinary members of the public can obtain entrance at prices that are somewhat high: stalls cost a guinea each [Pg 156] per performance (on special occasions twenty-five or thirty shillings), and the topmost gallery—from which, however, one can see well and hear better—is priced at half-a-crown; there are, of course, various intermediate prices.

Admission is expensive, but a good performance is now almost a certainty, and much thanks is due to the Royal Opera Syndicate for this. In years gone by the chief centre of interest used to be the prima donna or principal tenor, all else being relegated to a slipshod background; but of late years the Syndicate has laid out much money in altering and improving the stage and stage machinery; new scenery has been painted, and the operas newly dressed; the best singers available are engaged, and a good orchestra, with good conductors, adds no little to the performances. Reliance is placed, in the main, upon certain attractive operas, but interesting novelties and quasi-novelties are from time to time introduced, and the whole thing may be said to be well done.

This was not always so, and the fortunes of Grand Opera in England have fluctuated according to the financial state of the companies responsible for its production. Opera always appears in this country to have been largely dependant upon fashionable supporters, from the times [Pg 157] of the old Opera House in the Haymarket up to the present day. Covent Garden has had its ups and downs; it was really dubbed “Opera House” in 1847, having formerly been given over to ordinary theatrical uses, chief of which, so far as opera is concerned, was the production of Weber’s Oberon in 1826, while Bishop’s operas all saw the light upon the same boards. Italian opera prevailed from 1846 to 1885, when the company came to financial grief. Opera was then carried on by Señor Lago, Sir Augustus Harris taking over the reins from 1888 to 1896. Since that date it has been in the hands of the present Syndicate.

In addition to the ordinary three months’ season, the Syndicate has of late preceded their ordinary operatic productions by one or more presentations of specially prepared and rehearsed performances of Wagner’s Ring. For these special care and detailed work is given, and higher prices are charged; while the Wagnerian conductor, Richter, is placed in command. Of late years the Syndicate has experimented with opera in English: the Ring of Wagner, the Meistersinger, Madama Butterfly, and other operas have been performed in English, and, in the main, by English and American artists, with great success. These English performances have been held during short seasons given at different periods of the year to the [Pg 158] grand season proper, and the admission fees have been slightly less. The Syndicate also occasionally lets the house to the Moody-Manners and other opera companies.

Although not exclusively given over to the purposes of opera, Covent Garden is, in the main, an “Opera House”; the ambitious title is, however, also claimed by many a suburban and provincial theatre, absolutely without meaning or reason, seeing that operas are rarely heard within their walls. Many attempts have periodically been made to provide London with an Opera House, a notable instance being the fine building now known as the Palace Theatre of Varieties; this house was intended as the home of English national opera, and Sullivan’s Ivanhoe started the venture in 1891, but neither that work nor any other could, in all probability, fill a theatre night after night without some financial support to fall back upon; and although various plans are in the air, a permanent Opera House does not seem to be a very quickly realizable possibility.

After the Royal Opera Syndicate, with the opportunities it affords for hearing Grand Opera, the Englishman owes most to the various travelling companies, some of them very good, whose work, although occasionally heard in the Metropolis, is mostly done in the provinces. Of these the [Pg 159] most famous, in its palmy days, was the company formed by Mr. Carl Rosa in 1875, and which is still in existence, although its inceptor died some years ago. Originally, performances given by Mr. Carl Rosa took place in London, and during the seasons of 1875 and following years the Princess’ Theatre, The Lyceum, The Adelphi, and Her Majesty’s Theatre were the scenes of many a successful presentation; among works first brought to light under Mr. Rosa’s régime, or subsequently by the company bearing his name, may be mentioned Cowen’s Pauline and Thorgrim, Thomas’ Nadeshda and Esmeralda, and Hamish MacCunn’s Jeanie Deans. Even more important than the production of these novelties was the work done by Mr. Rosa in putting before the English public for the first time operas of such acknowledged excellence as Cherubini’s Water Carrier, Wagner’s Dutchman and Lohengrin (in English), and other works of similar calibre. Although still doing good work, the company has hardly, since its founder’s death in 1889, lived up to its earlier achievements, and the new operas performed are infrequent in appearance. London is no longer its home, although suburban theatres [Pg 160] often welcome one of its various constituent travelling parties; its work lies more in the provinces, especially in the larger commercial cities of the North of England. Perhaps more to the fore, at the present day, is the company founded in 1897 by Mr. Charles Manners and Madame Fanny Moody. Several plucky attempts have been made by these artists to provide a really efficient series of presentations of standard operas at comparatively low prices in London. This has been achieved by limiting the expenses incurred upon vocalists. While therefore it can hardly be claimed for the Moody-Manners company that the exponents of the leading characters of the operas are singers of the first rank, there are compensating advantages in the greater artistic unanimity of the chorus-singing and acting, and of the general stage management. Another feature of the London performances has been the occasional adoption of a scheme of short illustrative lectures given before the curtain, as to the plot, music, and composer of the work about to be rendered.

It is said that Mr. Manners loses money annually in London to gain it again in the provinces; he has certainly been courageous in taking Covent Garden and other large houses for long series of performances, some of quasi-novelties, which cannot have been financially [Pg 161] successful. The repertoire contains some works of the first magnitude, and the main company gives very good performances. Other features of the scheme to be noticed are the prizes occasionally offered in public competition for new works, and a “school” attached to the company, and travelling with it, where young vocalists are trained and given opportunity for placing their abilities before the public. Besides the chief company, there are four other branches from the same parent stem travelling and performing in various parts of the world.

Mr. Manners recently endeavoured to form an “Opera Union,” and some two thousand persons signed a form agreeing to support and take tickets for an English opera season in London; when, however, the scheme was ripe only a few hundred of these actually subscribed, and the idea had therefore to be relinquished.

Mention must be made of the generous action of the music publishers, Messrs. Ricordi, who in 1905 offered a prize of £500 for the best English opera. This was gained by Dr. Edward Naylor of Cambridge for a work entitled The Angelus, staged and performed by the Royal Opera Syndicate on January 27th, 1909; the work had a poor reception, and was only played twice.

Other schemes are frequently put before the public, and although in some cases they are too short-lived, and in others not of sufficiently [Pg 162] high aim to call for special mention, there is no real lack of opportunity in England in the twentieth century of hearing opera fairly well done. No comparison with Continental standards can be made in the provinces, conditions being so different; but the opera season at Covent Garden can vie with all rivals, and there is a gradual increase throughout the country, both of persons capable of appreciation of operatic enterprise and of artistic perception, which will not allow of slipshod presentations or performances.

Undoubtedly much remains to be done before we can claim for the English as a nation an equal amount of that fondness for opera which is so notable a characteristic of our Continental brethren; that we are moving somewhat slowly in that direction is perhaps, for the present, sufficient matter for congratulation. Lovers of opera in the vernacular have not so very much to encourage them as to the ultimate realization of the ideas they cherish, but those who are content to be satisfied with progress that is steady, if still slow, may see in England of to-day much in the growing appreciation for better music on the part of the masses upon which to congratulate themselves, and upon which also to build hopes for the future.

Feelings of disappointment—Expectations—The language difficulty—Why the story is hard to follow—What we go to the opera to hear—Some suggestions—To grasp the story—To realize the style of the music—Re-hearing necessary—How to begin to study opera—What is necessary for its enjoyment.

In penning such a chapter as this, I have no desire to lay down the law to those older and wiser than myself, nor do I wish to be didactic, or to instruct where no instruction is needed. The musician and the opera-habitué will not need telling how to listen to opera, nor how to enjoy it; nor should I be thanked for attempting the task.

At the same time it must be borne in mind that to the very large majority of young persons their first introduction to opera raises a feeling of disappointment. People vary much, and there are those to whom the charm of music is so great that the most unfamiliar harmonies [Pg 164] will convey delight to their ears and satisfaction to their mind. But this is exceptional rather than the rule, and it is to be feared that the neophyte, visiting the opera in a state of glorious ignorance, generally comes away with an inglorious feeling of unrealized ideals and unattained expectations.

To the average school-girl, for example, opera suggests various fascinating details read about in books and papers; such as beautiful singing, the presence of fashionable and brilliant persons, possibly of royalty; tiaras of diamonds and gorgeous costumes, and a thousand and one other trifles which may or may not come up to expectation. Even if they do, the excitement of such extraneous attributes as these soon palls, and the girl is left to reflect on the opera itself, which is perhaps the most fruitful source of disappointment.

For I would here assume what I take to be generally the case, namely, that the boy or girl paying a first visit to the opera has no real idea as to what is in store for them; and the excitement of the first entry into the large and brilliant house, with its crowd of well-dressed people experienced, a series of miniature shocks awaits the novice, whom, for sake of example, we may take to be an averagely intelligent and musical girl of sixteen. [Pg 165]

It does not take her long to discover that she can understand the meaning of hardly any word sung on the stage; a word or two here and there may be caught and mentally translated, but hardly sufficient, unless the girl be specially conversant with French, Italian, or German to piece things connectedly together, or to gather enough to follow the sentiments expressed: a little natural irritation at not knowing what it is all about ensues.

The words not being caught, as they would in an ordinary play in the vernacular, it is difficult to follow the story which is being unfolded; an ordinary stage piece may be intelligently followed by a deaf person by means of the eye, but in opera, situations must develop more slowly owing to the musical setting, and there is generally, so far as stage work is concerned, a minimum of action; it is therefore quite possible for our young lady to leave the theatre with the very barest notion as to the plot of the opera she has witnessed. Should the work witnessed be of a very popular character, such as Faust, various numbers in the music will appeal to her ear as being pleasantly familiar; even in such a case as this, however, there will be much that falls strangely, while with the majority of works the music would be so [Pg 166] new that only a confused general idea would be carried away. Not following either the language or the story, the music would be but another factor of confusion to our inexperienced girl, and especially would this be the case if the work presented were of a modern nature, or in a style to which she was quite unaccustomed in any phase of the art.

Such, to my knowledge, are some of the feelings experienced by young people taken to the opera for the first time; first impressions are strong, and a feeling of distaste thus inculcated may be hard to eradicate. Before considering how such wrong impressions might be prevented, or at least modified, we must again consider briefly what we go to the opera to hear.

It is not merely beautiful singing, for that can be heard more effectively from the same artists in the concert hall, when they are unhampered by the necessities of stage-action, costume, and make-up. Nevertheless, there are those who are content at the opera with this alone, hence the popularity of certain Italian operas, the success of which depends almost entirely upon pure vocalization and expressive singing with support of little in the way of stagecraft or dramatic truth. Nor is it excellent orchestral playing that is the main [Pg 167] objective, for that, too, can be better heard in the symphony of the concert-room. Nor is fine acting the main consideration—for that we must visit some temple of the drama; nor is it the wonderful development of stage appliance, the marvellous scenic displays, or electric lighting devices that call for comment: these can be better seen in some house mainly devoted to spectacular presentation.

It is none of these in particular for which we go to the opera, but rather for the combination of them all, which forms the characteristic feature of that complex aggregation of various arts of which opera is constituted. And seeing how many-sided and complex an art-growth it is with which we have to deal, small wonder is it that real appreciation for its numerous points comes but slowly, and only subsequent to experience, perhaps to study.

Now experience and study are just the things of which our imaginary young friend is quite unable to boast, hence the confused and mystified mental condition in which she, in all probability, leaves the opera house. Although easy to diagnose, the remedy for this state of things is more difficult to seek, but perhaps the following suggestions may be made:— [Pg 168]

First of all, I would advise, make some attempt before going to the opera to master the details of the plot or story; there are many means of doing this: in all the operas published in Boosey’s Royal Edition the plot is plainly set out at the beginning, and any work not published there may almost certainly be found with its story simply set forth in a book entitled The Opera, by Streatfield.

This done, some idea of what is taking place upon the stage can be grasped, and even perhaps some sentences of the libretto followed. Without such help, plots with so much movement and incident as even Lohengrin or Siegfried may be hard to grasp; but do not make the mistake of taking a copy of the music or libretto into the house with you; the auditorium is generally too dark to admit of their use, and even if this be not impossible, frequent cuts make following a difficult matter.

Having realized the plot, try to get some idea of the style of the music, that is, whether it is an opera of the older classical school (Mozart, Cherubini, Weber, etc.), in which case it will split up into airs, duets, finales, etc., with music somewhat in the manner of the familiar sonata; or if perhaps it be an Italian work (Rossini, Donizetti, Verdi), with the same sub-divisions, but of a more tuneful [Pg 169] and simple nature; or if a work of the “Grand Opera” school (Spontini, Meyerbeer), with massive stage effects and pompous musical utterances; or again, perhaps a modern work in the Wagner manner, with continuous non-divided music, and without definite tunes (melos and not rhythmic air); in this latter case, one or two of the chief leit-motiven might be memorized, but I would not advise this class of opera for a first experience; it is too advanced. In any case, do not go without some clear idea as to the manner and style of the music to be listened to; if any of the work can be played through and made at all familiar beforehand, so much the better.

With some sort of nodding acquaintance with the plot and the music, enjoyment may be attained if the work be not too complex; but even then I would say that it is not very easy to appreciate an opera at a first hearing; so that if opportunity arises for a second visit to the opera house to be paid, choose the same work that you have already heard. A first visit does little more than create an impression; a second visit will renew old impressions and convey further ones; a third visit would enable one to be on the look-out for special parts which have made special appeal; a fourth visit would, as a rule, constitute thorough enjoyment, provided the work be well performed. [Pg 170]

Of course there are some operas which can be easily appreciated at a first or second hearing, but these are the great minority, and I would suggest four visits before any judgment is passed; for an ordinary amateur to hear a new work and either praise or condemn extravagantly is nothing more or less than presumption; the more experienced and capable the critic, the more reserved is his judgment. Undoubtedly, for the more complex operas, four visits, unaccompanied by private study or by rehearing of the music, would be insufficient.

Begin with simple operas: such works as Faust and Carmen, the tunes of which are already known to a large extent, at once suggest themselves; and perhaps in the same category, although in a very different class, may be placed Lohengrin and Cavalleria Rusticana; after a course of easily grasped works, more exalted creations, such as Don Giovanni, Fidelio, and Die Meistersinger, may be approached; and finally we come to the serious works of Wagner’s Ring, such operas as Tristan and Isolde, the beauties of which are a sealed book to the inexperienced and the unmusical. As is the case with every phase of every art, real appreciation can only spring from real comprehension; [Pg 171] that which is not understood cannot be fully beloved. There must be a beginning and a gradual growth; love for opera is hardly an inborn gift; rather is it a cumulative force, fed by an ever-increasing knowledge, and by ever-widening critical faculties. To love music, singing, or an orchestral performance does not also necessarily imply an ability to care in the very least for so polymorphous a work as opera, which must be a thing of separate study, the more difficult in that it demands attention from so many points of view.

And when knowledge and experience are to some extent gained, become not too critical, for that mars enjoyment; those whose love is freshest for opera are not those unhappy critics who must perforce write a long analytical account of a new work ere the final curtain has fallen upon it, but rather those who have grown to cherish the musical phrases for their own sake and for their inherent beauty, irrespective of who may be singing them, provided the singing be good and correct. Love for opera, although not lightly gained, is also not lightly lost; it is a taste that endures and strengthens as time goes on and knowledge deepens.

[Pg 172]

CHAPTER XVII.
THE CHIEF OPERA HOUSES OF THE WORLD.

Covent Garden—La Scala—San Carlo— enice—Rome—Paris and the Grand Opera—Vienna—Budapest—Prague—Berlin —Dresden—Munich—Bayreuth—Russia—Other European countries—Egypt—America.

Architecturally speaking, our English opera house is not one of the sights of London. Hidden away somewhat ignominiously in a side street, it has little appearance, in spite of its size, and by no means forms so conspicuous a feature in the way of public building as do the majority of the houses in foreign capitals. Of the performances devoted to opera given within its walls we have already said something, and may therefore pass on to a consideration of the ways and doings of some of the Continental opera houses. [Pg 173]

Turning, at first, to the sunny land where opera was born, the name of the most famous “La Scala” Theatre at Milan at once comes to the mind. This house has the enormous seating capacity for 3,600 persons. Apart from its size, there is the musical and artistic interest which this house derives from the production of many works here for the first time. Since its opening date, August 3rd, 1778, hundreds of operas have been staged, and the triumphs of Rossini, Meyerbeer, Bellini, Donizetti, and Verdi have been witnessed. It is enough to state that such works as Rossini’s La Gazza Ladra, Bellini’s Norma, Donizetti’s Lucretia Borgia, Verdi’s I Lombardi, Boito’s Mefistofele, and Ponchielli’s La Gioconda first saw the light of day in “La Scala” to establish for it a claim to notice on the part of opera-goers. Sometime ago the municipal grant towards the expenses of the establishment was close upon £10,000, but a five years’ contract dating from 1902 allows only an annual subsidy of £3,900 for 50 performances, and at reduced prices.

Even older than La Scala, as it dates originally from 1737, is its Neapolitan rival “San Carlo.” The new house, built after a fire in 1816, is of great size, and at one time vied with its Milanese brother in the importance of new works produced; but less financial support has [Pg 174] been forthcoming from Naples than is the case at Milan, and although an annual grant of £3,200 is given by the municipality, the San Carlo productions, although of very high rank, are perhaps hardly on a level with those at La Scala. But San Carlo has had its triumphs, and has seen the first production of Rossini’s Mosĕ in Egitto, Zelmira, and other works, and of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, besides numbers of other operas of less fame.

Although Venice looms large in the history of music, and its doings in opera have been very considerable, there appears to be no theatre solely devoted to this class of work, nor is there any regular grant. It is interesting to remember that Rossini’s Semiramide and Tancredi are both Venetian productions.

Rome in older days had pride of place amongst opera houses, and Mr. Hadow speaks of it as being at one time the highest school in which a musician could graduate. Here was produced Rossini’s Il Barbiere and many another famous work. To-day opera at Rome, if indeed it is on an equal level, hardly seems to be of higher importance than that in other Italian cities. It has no subsidy at the present time, and has to depend on its own resources for its upkeep. [Pg 175]

The French opera house is, as most people know, one of the most imposing sights of Paris; well situated and finely conceived, it is a worthy home for that art product for which it is intended. The history of French opera from the earliest recorded performances of the sixteenth century is, of course, a very extensive one. So long ago as 1672 the name of Lully made Parisian opera famous, and although for a time its home was transferred to the Palace Royal, the site has borne testimony to many a fine building, the present one, inscribed Académie Nationale de Musique, dating from 1874 (commenced in 1861). Although its seating capacity of 2,156 is much less than that of La Scala, it is the largest house in the world, and covers almost three acres of ground, the cost of its erection being nearly a million and a half.

Besides Lully, the names of Rameau, Gluck, Cherubini, Spontini, Hérold, Auber, Meyerbeer, and Berlioz are all indissolubly connected with the opera of Paris: of that special class of work, the Parisian “Grand Opera,” we have already spoken. There is no house in all musical history that can claim so great a measure of variety and incident, nor make such interesting reading, as that of the “Académie de Musique.” Its fortunes have fluctuated, but it has done wonderful work, and a [Pg 176] mere recapitulation of names of fine operas which gained their original production here would be far too long for quotation. The glory of Parisian Grand Opera has always held a spell over the nations, and has been a thing apart from all else in music; we know something of its hold upon Wagner, and if there is to-day somewhat less of a glamour cast by it than in the days when Lully held despotic sway, or Spontini or Meyerbeer dominated all, there is still a charm and delight to be found within its walls, which are difficult to equal in houses where the traditional uses are less sacredly adhered to.

The French are very jealous of its traditions, and although modern times have not allowed the direction to fall behind in their efforts to keep pace with the strides operatic music has made under Wagner’s influence, it is only quite recently that the works of the composer have been welcomed in Paris. Popular feeling, partly on patriotic grounds, for long kept his operas in the background: Parisians would have none of them. The result has been, perhaps, even more rigidly to preserve those customs of Grand Opera, such as the inclusion of a ballet, which are amongst its most distinctive features.

Touching upon the question of finance, we find that the French Government allows the very large subsidy of £32,000 per annum towards [Pg 177] the expenses of Grand Opera; in return, however, opera is supposed to be staged three or four times during the week, and the prices of admission, as compared with London, are not high (ranging from 17 fr. to 2 fr.). France loves its opera, and does not hesitate to lay out good round sums for its support; nor are its people behind-hand in their attendance; a crowded house is the rule rather than the exception, appreciation, while critical, being still keen.

Comparing not unfavourably in dignity of conception and splendour of adornment with the French house is the Opera House of Vienna, an ornament in that encircling ring of fine buildings which is so distinctive a feature of the Austrian capital. Vienna has been the home of so many of the giants of music that it is not surprising that it should have witnessed the production of many a work now world famous: Gluck’s Orfeo (1762), Mozart’s Figaro (1786), Cosi fan Tutte (1790), and Zauberflöte (1791), Beethoven’s Fidelio (1805); these alone would suffice to cause Vienna to stand high in musical fame, for it was at Vienna that these works first came to light. Not that the present Opera House witnessed their production, for the building which to-day stands as an abode of opera dates from a more recent time; the cost of its erection was £509,795. [Pg 178] Belonging to the State, its affairs are administered by the Lord Chamberlain’s department, any deficit being made good from the Emperor’s Civil List.

The Hungarian Opera House at Budapest also receives from the State a subsidy of £24,208, and in addition a sum of £250 for salaries; the Emperor supplementing this by a grant of £13,334.

Reference must also be made to Prague, famous for the production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni in 1787. More recently Prague has been the home of works of the Bohemian school, as exemplified by Smetana, Dvŏrák, Fibich, and others. Smetana’s Bartered Bride was staged at Prague in 1866, and from that date to the time of the appearance of Dvŏrák’s last opera, Armida, in 1904, the National Theatre has witnessed a constant succession of works of a characteristically national tone which make an unfailing appeal to the Czechs. The Czech theatre has a State grant of £3,750.

The Berlin Opera House also has claims to notice, for was not Weber’s Der Freischütz mounted here for the first time? Moreover, Berlin being the capital of Germany, the house is the scene of many fine State performances much patronized by the Royal House. The building itself, [Pg 179] although standing well in the fine “Linden” promenade, will not compare with Paris or Vienna from an architectural point of view; the Opera House and Play House of Berlin together receive £54,000 towards their working expenses.

Leipzig and Dresden have also fine theatres, the Dresden Opera House being specially famous for its associations with Weber and Wagner. Moreover, it is a fine building, magnificently situated in an imposing position, and having considerable architectural pretensions. The King of Saxony pays £31,000 for the opera, theatre, and orchestra, and also makes good any deficit that arises. At this theatre Richard Strauss has produced his two latest operas, Salome and Elektra.

Munich has of late come to the front in operatic matters; the Court Theatre, administered from the Civil List, has for long devoted much attention to opera, but interest is now centred somewhat on the new “Prince Regent” Theatre, where an attempt is being made to outvie Bayreuth itself in the Wagner productions; fine performances have taken place during the last few summers; the best singers available have been engaged, and no expense spared in mounting and general details. Nor [Pg 180] have the performances been confined to Wagner, for representations of Mozart’s operas have been interspersed with these. It is as yet too early to say what influence, if any, the new Munich house will have on the fortunes of Bayreuth, but it seems probable that a theatre even better fitted up than Bayreuth itself for Wagnerian performances, and in so much more central and easily reached a position, may in the near future very prejudicially affect the fortunes of the older house.

Almost every German town of any size has its Opera House, and detailed description of these is manifestly impossible, although very much interest attaches to some of them; we must therefore conclude our account of the German theatres with a short description of the theatre built by Wagner at Bayreuth according to his own ideas of what such a house should be.

There is little doubt that at the present time the Bayreuth Opera House is the most famous in the world; worship of Wagner is still wide-spread, and the halo surrounding his name and his home casts a glow upon the little town which he selected as the scene of his final labours; and, therefore, from all parts of the world, when the Bayreuth theatre opens its doors, pilgrimages are made, and devotees flock with an intense enthusiasm which has no parallel in the case of any other house. Moreover, until the Americans boldly pirated Parsifal, contrary to Wagner’s wishes, it was here only that his last great work could be heard; hence, to the true Wagnerian, Bayreuth is a spot sacred and hallowed, inspiring a reverence quite distinct from that felt for any other. [Pg 181]

BAYREUTH THEATRE.

[Pg 182] It was in May 1872 that the foundation-stone was laid, and celebrated with a performance of Beethoven’s Choral Symphony, and the completion of the building, delayed by lack of funds, took place in 1876, when the Ring was performed; since then performances have taken place on a grand scale at intervals of a year or two years in the summer. Seats, which are the same price all over the house, cost £1 for each performance; a feature in the construction was that an equally good view should be obtained from every point of view (hence the equality of prices); this was done by raising every seat a little above the one immediately in front of it, and by putting each spectator where he could see between the heads of the two persons before him. Another feature was the submerged orchestra—i.e., below the level of the floor of the house; even the conductor, although he has the stage in view, cannot be seen by the audience, and part of the orchestra (the brass) is actually under the stage—an experiment which seemed doubtful at first, but which has on the whole proved successful. The machinery [Pg 183] and scenery were as good as could possibly be obtained, and the management still keeps up to date in this respect. Although open to competition both from New York and from Munich, Bayreuth seems likely to hold its own for some years to come, whenever it may choose to open its doors.

In Russia, and more especially at Petersburg and Moscow, theatrical attendance is looked upon as an educational matter, and therefore it is possible to see opera for fivepence! (Happy people—in that respect!) Of course this means very large Imperial help, information as to the exact amount of which is not forthcoming; but the two capitals have fine houses, with interest for us in that they have witnessed the production of most of the operas of the young Russian school; the ballet is much beloved in Russia, and forms one of the regular objects of representation.

Space forbids us to go into detail as to the opera houses of Sweden (Royal Theatre of Stockholm), Norway (National Theatre, Christiania), Spain, Holland, Belgium (Brussels, Théâtre de la Monnaie), Denmark (Copenhagen, Royal Theatre), or Portugal (Lisbon, San Carlos). The latter is, however, of special interest in being one of the oldest [Pg 184] houses of its kind, having been erected in 1793. Information as to the subsidies received by these and other theatres will be found in Appendix B.

Of opera houses outside Europe it will be perhaps sufficient to mention those of Cairo and Alexandria (the former of which saw the production of Verdi’s Aïda in 1871), and the American houses (New York, Boston, Philadelphia). The New York, the Metropolitan, and the Manhattan opera houses witness very magnificent performances, and command the best and most expensive talent in the world.

Operetta—Musical comedy—Ballad opera—Masque— Ballet—Objections thereto—Curiosities of construction—Pasticcio—Mixed language— Stereotyped casts—Curiosities of stage requirements —Wagner’s supernatural requirements—Curiosities of the music—Vocal cadenzas.

The chief offshoot of Opera proper is Opera Comique, or Singspiel. This we have already described as being opera interspersed with spoken dialogue, not necessarily of a humorous nature: the mere fact, however, of its introduction confers on the work the title of Opera Comique in France, or of Singspiel in Germany. When one remembers that such works as Beethoven’s Fidelio and Weber’s Der Freischütz belong to this type, it is evidently of great importance, and a very large number of the operas already mentioned by a variety of composers come under this heading. [Pg 186]

Next perhaps in interest is the operetta, or short opera, originally a one-act light opera very frequently employing spoken dialogue; the general style, moreover, is lighter and of less imposing proportions than serious opera. In later days operettas are often prolonged into two or more acts, and have been made very specially familiar to English theatre-goers by the long series of works by Gilbert and Sullivan, which, properly speaking, belong to this category.

Of a somewhat lower grade is musical comedy, a popular type of stage piece making considerable use of music, but of only the less exalted forms of the art; no serious pretensions to artistic beauty are claimed by these works, the taste for which seems to be, at the present time, somewhat on the wane.

A form of opera for which the English have always had an affection is the “Ballad Opera,” really a string of airs, often by different composers, thrown more or less promiscuously into a story, with which they often appear to have no very close connection; there is practically no concerted music, and the whole bears some sort of resemblance to a ballad concert. The renowned Beggar’s Opera, which for years was a model for English entrepreneurs, belonged to this [Pg 187] category, and set an example for hosts of imitators to follow; indeed, England is only now beginning to shake herself free from the trammels of this class of work, to which such operas as The Bohemian Girl and Maritana tend to approximate. The ballad opera also took root in America, where hundreds of such works flourished for a time, and it is not unknown in Germany, where it receives the title of “Liederspiel.”

Of more artistic merit and interest is the “Masque,” which really preceded opera; originally developing in carnival processions through the streets of Italian towns, it was adopted in England during the reigns of Henry VIII. and some succeeding monarchs. The plan of such works was the presentation of some allegorical idea upon a stage with descriptive music, both vocal and instrumental, and, in addition, a large proportion of dancing. Campion, Lock, Coperario, and many others took part in the composition of these divertissements, which were in great demand for such functions as royal weddings. They were staged in the most sumptuous manner, great attention being paid to stage machinery, costume, etc.; much of the music has been lost, but what remains shows it to have been excellent of its class, and effective even in performance to-day. [Pg 188]

In early days of operatic history there was no radical difference between the masque and the ballet; an entertainment of vocal and instrumental music in celebration of the marriage of the Duke of Joyeuse in 1581 (costing three and a half million francs to produce, by-the-bye) was termed “Ballet comique de la Royne.” As an illustration of the dance alone, which is its present signification, the ballet appears to date from the foundation of the opera in France, with which it has had a very close and lasting connection.

Indeed until recently grand opera without a ballet was unknown; beginning with Lully, and continuing even up to the present day, the ballet has maintained a position of great importance; and although it has never appealed to the English to the same extent as it seems to have done to our Continental brethren, it has been transported with the works in which it was introduced, and has become a very familiar feature to opera-goers; even so recent a work as Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur introduces a lengthy and somewhat annoying ballet.

For the great disadvantage of the ballet is that it breaks up the continuity of the story; the development of the interest of the opera is arrested, and so far as the music is concerned a complete difference in style is often necessary, the result being that the old train of [Pg 189] thought and idea is often only to be resumed with difficulty. Hence it happens that, with a growing appreciation for artistic truth in opera, the ballet has fallen into the background, and most operas seen to-day do not include any performance of what is, at best, a somewhat irrelevant interlude. A few attempts, such as that by Wagner in Tannhäuser, to introduce a ballet as an integral factor in the dénouement, have not been specially successful, nor have they been widely imitated. As a separate form of entertainment, apart from opera, the ballet has had excellent music written for it by Adam, Sullivan, Tchaïkovsky, and others (in Russia it is a very popular amusement); but in England its appearances are now mainly confined to the music-hall, where it is wedded to music of a light and charming character.

A few words as to curiosities of opera; these may be grouped under two or three different heads, somewhat as follows:—

• (1) Curiosities of Construction and Design.
• (2) Curiosities of Stage Requirements.
• (3) Curiosities of the Music.

[Pg 190]

The old manner of collecting a mass of heterogeneous materials in the way of airs and songs, and of turning them into a kind of opera, is certainly curious. The name “Pasticcio,” or “pie,” is very applicable to this hybrid growth, which, however, has at times attained to great popularity; one of the most famous instances of its kind is Muzio Scevola, produced in 1771. his work was in three acts: the first composed by Ariosti, the second by Buononcini, and the third by Handel; the last-named great composer, with an easy manner of doing things which would certainly not pass muster at the present day, also brought out in 1738 an opera almost entirely made up of favourite airs from his other works; an example which Gluck followed a few years later. The day for this kind of thing is fortunately past, and no composer of serious operatic work would revert to a procedure which is more suggestive of the construction of a pantomime.

The singing by different performers in different languages at the same time is another defunct custom; so little regard was paid to the importance of the libretto that it used to be quite a common occurrence for each person on the stage to sing in whatever language came easiest to him or her; on the Continent the airs would perhaps be sung in Italian and the recitatives in German, with an inconsistency that is [Pg 191] almost incredible; when, however, agility in vocalization was the chief attraction in operatic representation, it is to be presumed that intelligibility of utterance was not an important consideration.

To the same cause must be attributed the extraordinary fact that the dramatis personæ were the same for nearly all operas during a certain period. Whatever the story or plot to be unfolded, it was essential that there should be six principal characters—a high soprano, a mezzo, and a contralto, a male soprano, a tenor, and a bass; of course slight modifications in the character of the voices was occasionally allowed, but the main lines followed were as above. And whether it suited the story or not, each of these good people expected to have an important air to sing in each act, and woe betide the unhappy composer who wrote a more attractive piece for one of them than was supplied to his or her rival singer. From this stereotyped form of bondage, with its horrible artificiality, opera is now free; and it is due to the observance of these conventions that the works of Handel and other composers, who wrote really good music, are absolutely dead.

Apart from the construction in the form of the opera, there have been from time to time interesting experiments made with regard to the [Pg 192] housing of that integral portion of it—the orchestra. Wagner’s innovation, the placing of the band out of sight and below the stage, although it necessitated the increase of the string sections, has proved on the whole good; other designs have been the entire covering in of the orchestra with a thin transparent substance, which has had the effect of subduing the sound, but which has also proved disastrously hot for the poor players. One idea emanated from the New York Metropolitan, when Mr. Conried suggested the placing of the brass players upon a movable platform, which could move up or down at will; if it is desired that their instruments shall sound prominently they will be raised into the air; if, on the other hand, a subdued effect is required, they will be lowered a few feet; a long crescendo will, presumably, be effected by a gradual elevation of this movable floor! One has yet to wait to see this somewhat freakish invention adopted.

In days when enormous groups of performers were considered indispensable for grand effects in opera, one reads of many extravagances in the way of display. In modern scenic dramatic works, in the ballet, and in pantomime, these effects are no doubt legitimate enough; but in so far as the cumbering of the stage with voiceless [Pg 193] supers hardly helps on the cause of opera, it is a matter for congratulation that these exceptional stage demands are no longer made to any great extent.

Here, for instance, is the modest list of performers that took part in Freschi’s Berenice in 1680:—

• 100 Virgins.
• 100 Soldiers.
• 100 Horsemen in Iron Armour.
•   40 Cornets on Horseback.
•     6 Mounted Trumpeters.
•     6 Drummers.
•     6 Ensigns.
•     6 Sackbuts.
•     6 Flutes.
• 12 Minstrels playing on Turkish instruments, etc.
•     6 Pages.
•     3 Sergeants.
•     6 Cymbaleers.
•   12 Huntsmen.
•   12 Grooms.
•   12 Charioteers.
•     2 Lions led by 2 Turks.
•     2 Elephants.
•   4 Horses with Berenice’s Triumphal Car.
• 12 Horses drawing 6 cars.
•     6 Chariots.
• A stable with 100 living horses.
• A forest filled with wild boar, deer, and bears.

[Pg 194] However magnificent and imposing in effect such a spectacle may be, its proper sphere is not opera. With Meyerbeer, Spontini, and other composers of grand opera these ideas have found favour; but they are a bar to the production of their works to-day, not only on the score of very considerable expense, but also because the artistic sense that delights in beautiful music wedded to appropriate drama will hardly find pleasure in such merely sensuous effects of the eye.

The difficulties of modern stage management occur chiefly in the presentation of the supernatural; huge crowds are easy enough to put upon the stage, but to make a bird fly across naturally is a more involved matter. In so many of the Wagner operas these supernatural features are essential elements of the situation; the Rhine maidens must appear to be swimming in real water, the bird must fly ahead of Siegfried to show him the rock on which Brünnhilde sleeps, and round that rock living flames of fire must dart and play. It is such points as these which are difficult to stage convincingly. Has anyone ever felt very frightened at the dragon Fafner? The fire has a way of coming out of his mouth at the wrong time, his head and his tail [Pg 195] seem to have little connection with one another, and the impressive effect of his deeply sonorous utterances is often marred by the very visible megaphone through which they are uttered. In these strange beasts, for which machinery is ineffective, there is still scope for improvement in modern stage management.

Curiosities in the music occur now and then: such, for instance, is the weird portion in the middle of Weber’s Euryanthe overture, where the curtain rises momentarily to display a gruesome tomb: such is the thrusting aside of the stage curtain in the midst of Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci prelude for one of the characters to sing a song; such is the curious vocal scherzo upon one reiterated note, for the chorus of seraphim in Boito’s Mefistofele.

On a bigger scale is the curious experiment made by Michael in the opera Utal, in writing his work without any violins in the orchestra. Of more frequent occurrence than the omission of instruments is the inclusion of various unusual effects, such as the introduction of a mandoline for the serenade in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, of the Glockenspiel for Papageno in the Magic Flute, of peal of bells in many works, and so forth, whereas Handel sighed for a cannon, and [Pg 196] Tchaïkovsky actually used one in his 1812 overture. The maximum of stage noise in this way was probably reached by Spontini, who, in his opera Alcidor had a number of anvils upon the stage tuned to certain notes! An anvil accompaniment, not ineffectively used, may be heard in Gounod’s Philémon and Baucis.

Among curiosities of the music must be mentioned the vocal cadenzas, etc., written for exceptional singers; and in the days when these singers used to include male sopranos and contraltos (termed Castrati), the majority of singers appear to have been exceptional. For a man to develop a high soprano voice seems not only unnatural but inartistic; and these singers, many of them most famous, belong to an order of things that obtains no longer, being contrary both to modern ethics and to good taste: what the male soprano could do can usually be done equally well by a good woman singer, and of these there is usually a sufficient supply.

For women singers with voices of exceptional compass special music has often been written, as witness the part of “Queen of the Night” in Mozart’s Zauberflöte, much of which lies abnormally high. Even where not written, singers of Italian opera have often introduced elaborate and wonderful cadenzas for the purposes of display, and [Pg 197] these, although not tolerated in opera of the most exalted kind, may still be frequently heard. An example of a cadenza of this kind may conclude the chapter.

Example of a Vocal Cadenza quoted by Mozart as sung to him by Lucrezia Agujari in 1770.

[Audio]

[Pg 198] Nowadays little of this kind of music is written for the voice, so far as opera is concerned. The work required of the modern operatic singer is more dramatic by nature, and makes demands upon technique of a different order.

Opera and politics—Lohengrin in Paris— Opera non-lucrative to the composer—Jenny Lind’s contract—Modern fees—Royalties— Librettists—Metastasio and Scribe—The prima donna—Stories of singers and composers.

Now and again it happens that Opera rubs shoulders with Politics, and acquires some importance in the affairs of nations. Lully’s power at court in the days of Louis XIV. was notorious, and none too generously exercised so far as his fellow musicians were concerned. But influence with monarchs, such as that which he acquired, is exceptional and rarer now, and less powerful than in those earlier days. Lully profited by the royal favour bestowed on him, but some great composers have been less fortunate.

Cherubini, for instance, was detested by the great Napoleon, who lost [Pg 200] no opportunity of inflicting slights upon him. Cherubini’s sympathies were clearly manifested in his Water Carrier opera, as on the side of revolution, but distinctly contrary to the excesses to which it often led. So enraged were some ruffians with him that he was in 1794 dragged out of his house, marched through Paris, and finally compelled to provide music for the pleasure of his captors. Napoleon frequently called him into his presence in order to praise other composers, suggesting that he compared unfavourably with them. When Cherubini replied with some little spirit, he was promptly punished by being compelled to conduct various concerts and state performances with no reward whatever.

On the other hand, Napoleon, for a time, could not do enough for Spontini: he commanded the production of La Vestale, and rewarded him with a present of 10,000 francs, loading him, moreover, with praises and honours; this did not, however, last for very long, for the downfall of the great conqueror was at hand, and anxieties and cares claimed his attention.

Photo]  [W. Shadwell Clerke.

[Pg 201]

Political feeling has probably never run so high over operatic matters as it did in Paris after the Franco-German war: for years no German work was tolerated, at any rate so far as new matter was concerned, and the determination of the management to produce Wagner’s Lohengrin in 1891 was the signal for a riotous uproar. Public feeling ran high; some of the leading singers, considering discretion the better part of valour, caused frequent postponements of the performance by means of convenient indispositions, and when the work actually came to presentation cordons of police were called out to guard the opera house, both inside and out. M. Lamoureux, who conducted, did so with a pistol in his pocket. Opposition inside the theatre made itself felt by an objectionable device of setting floating in the auditorium little balloons of evil-smelling gas; while opposition in the street was met by cavalry charges and frequent arrests. The whole occasion was made one of political import, but fortunately commonsense prevailed, and no serious issues resulted; happily for opera, such scenes as these are infrequent and unusual.

In our country opera has little or no connection with political matters, except that when some foreign potentate visits our shores, a gala performance at Covent Garden is usually arranged as one of the features of his visit: so far as English art or English artists are concerned, there is, unfortunately, little use made of either on these occasions. [Pg 202]

Opera is not a fortune-making business for the majority of those who embark on such enterprise: so far as the composition of opera is concerned, financial result is usually very small. Nowadays an opera cannot be lightly tossed off in a few days: it is true that Handel composed Rinaldo in fourteen days, Rossini Il Barbiere in thirteen (a wonderful performance), and Pacini his Saffo in four weeks; but these are very exceptional instances, and may fitly be compared with the labour of Wagner, who had the Meistersinger and the Ring on hand for something like twenty years. Modern opera, with its polyphonic orchestral background and amorphous movements, demands years of work, and for the majority of those who give so much of their lives to it there is little to show in return, so far as a monetary point of view is taken.

Operatic management, too, is very speculative; Handel lost his whole fortune (£10,000) and became bankrupt through his operatic ventures, and yet his works had enormous success in their day. It is to be feared that the example set by him has been followed by many a subsequent manager, and is yet in store for many another.

The chief item in expenditure is, of course, the enormous amount swallowed up in the fees paid to the singers; Handel paid Senesino 1,400 guineas for the season in 1731, and even allowing for the greater [Pg 203] value of money in those days, that is a comparatively small amount. Here, for example, is the contract made by Jenny Lind with Mr. Lumley in 1846. Far less liberal, by the way, than such a singer would receive to-day:—

It generally happens that a singer commands higher fees for private than for public singing, the advantage of the latter being as a rule a guaranteed number of appearances; Farinelli, for example, the chief singer engaged by the noble faction that set up in opposition to Handel in 1734 received only £1,500 per annum, but his private engagements made up his income to £5,000 a year—a large one at that date. This singer afterwards visited the court of Philip V. of Spain; that monarch was suffering from mental depression, from which nothing aroused him until the advent of Farinelli. The Queen was so delighted to see her [Pg 204] royal spouse once more interested in anything that she engaged Farinelli at a salary of 50,000 francs to remain in Madrid; this he did, singing the same four songs to the King every night for ten years! Eventually Philip V. succumbed, but he must have been a patient monarch.

It does not always happen that singers of equal merit receive the same payments, some being more fortunate than others; Catalani, for example, in 1807 received £5,000 for the season, and with her concerts and provincial tours netted a profit for the year of £16,700. A more famous singer, Lablache, in 1828 could only command £1,600 for four months; while Malibran in 1835 received £2,755 for twenty-four appearances in London, and 45,000 francs for one hundred and eighty-five performances a few years later at La Scala.

But these fees are as nothing compared with those commanded by the leading singers of to-day, more especially in America, where money is poured out like water, and where artists are retained at high fees by one opera house, even if they do not sing a single note during the whole season, so that a rival house should not secure their services. It is not very unusual for a singer to receive £1,000 per performance in the twentieth century. Madame Patti has stated that she received £1,200 per night for two seasons of sixty nights each. Caruso has been [Pg 205] paid £20,000 for eighty performances, and about £8,000 per annum for singing into gramophones; his contract for four years at £40,000 per annum with the New York Metropolitan is probably a record in this direction.

Of course the amount received by those who compose the music never approximate to such figures as these. For Don Juan Mozart received only 500 thalers, and for Figaro 100 ducats. Weber’s payment for Der Freischütz was 80 Friedrich d’ors, out of which he had to pay the librettist; after the treasury had netted 30,000 thalers from this work Weber was presented with another 100! There are, however, a few examples of fair bargains made by musicians: Spontini in 1814 was offered the then liberal salary of £750 per annum for two operas each year in Berlin; in 1819 he accepted a ten years’ engagement at the court of Frederick William III. of Berlin at a salary of 4,000 thalers, a benefit of 1,050 thalers, a free concert, and a pension. He was well treated, but did not himself behave very well, allowing his servant to sell free admissions to the theatre, and grumbling because his first-night presentations did not bring in as much as he wished. He finally ended by a demand for compensation for 46,850 thalers, and that in face of the fact that he was convicted of lèse-majesté and [Pg 206] sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment: an indignity from which his new monarch graciously released him.

Sometimes an agreement is made with the composer by which he receives a royalty or lump sum for each performance of his work. To the composer of an opera that takes the public fancy this spells fortune, and vast sums have now and again been made in this way. Isouard, for example, received for the performances of his Cendrillon in Paris alone over 100,000 francs in 1810, while Rossini and others have by similar strokes of luck easily acquired wealth. So small, however, is the proportion of new works to-day which become popular, that the chances of such good fortune are very small; a Cavalleria Rusticana only makes its appearance now and then, nor is the composer of such a work often able to repeat his success.

Although rarely recognized, the work of the author of the libretto is of vast importance. In the days when the story meant little or nothing, provided so many pegs were provided on which to hang the “Arias,” the share of the librettist was a less conspicuous one; to-day no inconsiderable part of the failure of an opera is due to a poor libretto. It therefore frequently happens that composers, finding it impossible to find a poem to please them, write their own libretti, the [Pg 207] chief example of this dual work being Wagner, whose dramas are often very fine considered from a literary point of view alone.

Most famous of the librettists of early operas is Metastasio (1698-1782), some of whose poems were set by thirty and forty different composers: he wrote dramas used by such composers as Handel, Hasse, Jomelli, Porpora, Graun, Gluck, Meyerbeer, Caldara, Haydn, Cimarosa, and Mozart. In later days mention may be made of the dramatist Scribe (1791-1861), a French poet who provided a vast number of works for both the Grand Opera and the Opera Comique. The list of composers who have used Scribe’s libretti includes Auber, Adam, Boieldieu, Donizetti, Hérold, Halèvy, Meyerbeer, and Verdi. Quite one hundred of his operas were staged and performed, to say nothing of light dramatic and other pieces.

Scattered here and there in literature that deals with opera may be found endless stories of singers, composers, and art-patrons. Most fruitful in providing amusing tales are the prime donne, whose jealousies and bickerings, although unpleasant enough for those who have to contend against them, make sufficiently good reading. The Prima Donna generally knows her power, and is autocratic: there is not every [Pg 208] day at hand a Handel, to take such a one forcibly by the scruff of her neck and hang her suspended from a window in mid-air until his will is granted. When such a factious lady has a husband in the same rôle consequences may be very bad indeed: the tenor Arsani, for example, the teacher of the Garcias, had a wife who was a prima donna; but instead of acting together, so jealous were they of each other, that when one was receiving the plaudits of the audience the other would go round into the auditorium and hiss!

Rivalry is not always, however, so apparent, and when fine singers are willing to co-operate, very fine results are sometimes obtained. The most notable ensemble in this respect was probably that of the four great singers, Grisi, Rubini, Tamburini, and Lablache, a combination of talent very seldom equalled, which delighted auditors of the early Victorian era.

Nowadays, although a person of power, the great singer has not the field so entirely to himself as to be able to dictate as to what he will or will not do: a certain tenor, for example, at Marseilles early in 1905 withdrew his promise to sing at a certain concert for the reason that a rival tenor had been engaged. Great was his amazement to find that this refusal by no means jeopardized the concert, as he had hoped, but rather became an additional source of amusement; for the [Pg 209] management, having advertised him, determined that he should be seen upon the stage, and a ridiculous effigy of him was brought forward, and a trio from Faust sung by other singers grouped round it. This may not have been very dignified, or even witty, but a few drastic measures of this kind might induce singers to be a little more reasonable in their treatment of the public.

Strange measures are sometimes taken to prevent the success of an opera: a hired body of fellows to hiss in opposition to the organized claque is by no means a rare sight in a French house; but sometimes more militant measures are taken. Rousseau’s Le Devin du Village, for example, received its coup de grace from the fact that in 1828 some person (supposed to have been Berlioz) threw a huge powdered wig on to the stage in the midst of the performance. So bad was the opposition to Jomelli’s Armida, produced in 1750, that its composer flew the house for his life by a back door. The opposition to Lohengrin in Paris has already been commented upon, but that to Tannhäuser, organized by the Jockey Club in 1866, was even stronger: noise and disorder filled the theatre; people in the pit played flageolets, while the gallery sang riotous songs. So prejudiced was public opinion that a fair hearing was not accorded to the work. Under these conditions it is not altogether incredible that [Pg 210] Merimée should have exclaimed that he could write similar music after hearing his cat walk up and down the pianoforte!

Of composers, there are perhaps more amusing stories of Spontini than of any other single opera writer. This very opinionated and high-handed Italian thought much of himself, and little of all else, with the result that his life is very amusing reading. He would have what he wanted. If his cellos could not play loud enough, they were made to sing their parts as well; if, after six hours’ rehearsal, his prima donna fainted, he suggested that someone with more physique should be engaged. He did not, however, always have his own way. When La Petite Maison was produced in 1804, the audience dashed on the stage and smashed everything, while La Vestale was greeted with laughing, snoring, and the putting on of nightcaps. His orchestra, although moderate in volume in comparison with what often obtains to-day, was considered very noisy, so much so that it is said that a certain doctor who had a very deaf patient thought he might be made to hear by attending a performance of La Vestale. After a specially noisy passage the deaf man with delight turned to his doctor: “I can hear,” said he. His remark met with no response, for the reason that the doctor himself had been deafened by the noise. [Pg 211]

Spontini felt such opposition very keenly: others are less affected by hostility. When Rossini’s Il Barbiere was produced at Rome in 1816, it was hooted and hissed, much to the chagrin of several of the composer’s friends. Thinking to commiserate with him on the failure of his work, they called at his house, expecting to find him in the depths of despair: instead of that the maestro was safely tucked up in bed and fast asleep.

Quotations of stories of singer and composer might fill many chapters of such a book as this, but there are books such as Sutherland Edward’s History of the Opera and Ella’s Musical Reminiscences to which those interested may readily turn, and therefore need not be reprinted here.

A whole wealth of amusement may be derived from the daily papers, and to-day the impressarios of New York seem to be the most persecuted persons in the world. Opera has its worries and troubles, but to those who love it it is a constant source of refreshment and of artistic joy. [Pg 212]

[Pg 214]

Chronological List of Composers of Opera
(with names of their chief works),
Great Singers, Conductors, etc.

• 1535 (?). Vincenzo Galilei (Florence). Early writer of music drama
• on the lines of Greek tragedy.
• 1550 (?). Cavalieri. Composer of the first oratorio, also of four music
• dramas. One of the earliest composers to seek to illustrate the
• meaning of the words by the music.
• 15— (?). Giovanni Bardi. The instigator of the idea of modern opera:
• at Bardi’s house the circle of dilletanti and musicians assembled
• and endeavoured to resuscitate Greek drama by the provision
• of suitable music.
• 15— (?). Jacopo Peri. Composer of first real opera in the modern sense
• of the term; Dafne (1597) and Euridice (1600) are the titles of
• his works, in the monodic style. These opened up new ground,
• and set a model which other composers quickly followed.
• 1558. Guilio Caccini (Rome). Opera composer of the monodic school;
• shares with Peri the merit of founding modern opera. [Pg 216]
• 1567. Claudio Monteverde (Cremona), 1567-1643. Writer of many,
• operas intermezzi, etc.; he was a great innovator in harmony,
• and also did much to extend the use of the various instruments
• of the orchestra. The earliest composer to associate certain
• groups of instruments with certain of the stage characters.
• 1575. Thomas Campion (London). English composer of masques
• and ballets.
• 1580. John Coperario (London). An Englishman who travelled
• in Italy, and wrote music for English plays.
• 1582. William Lawes (Dinton). English composer of court
• masques and airs.
• 1585. Heinrich Schütz (Köstritz), 1585-1672. First German
• operatic composer, who also excelled in church music.
• 1588 or 1590. Nicholas Laniere (Italy). A foreign musician who
• settled in England and wrote music for masques; one of his
• compositions was a masque by Ben Johnson, “in stylo recitativo.”
• 1596. Henry Lawes (Dinton). English composer who shared with
• Matthew Lock and Cook the composition of one of the earliest
• English operas, The Siege of Rhodes.
• 1597. Benedetto Ferrari (Venice). Helped to found the Venetian
• School of Opera.
• 1600. Pietro F. Cavalli (Crema). A follower of Monteverde, who
• wrote at least twenty-seven operas, mostly for Venice, but
• some were performed in Paris; a composer of dramatic power.
• 1600. Production of Peri’s Orfeo, the first publicly performed opera.
• 1600 (?). Francesco Manelli (Venice). Shares with Ferrari the
• credit of the foundation of opera in his native city.
• 1604. Giacomo Carissimi (Marino). Great composer of oratorio,
• who also wrote occasionally for the stage.
• 1620. Marcantonio Cesti (Florence?). Follower of Cavalli and
• Carissimi; wrote about twelve operas. [Pg 217]
• 1625. Giovanni Legrenzi (Bergamo). Composer of seventeen
• operas, mostly produced in Venice.
• 1627. The first German opera (Dafne) produced.
• 1628. Robert Cambert (Paris). First French composer of opera;
• at first thoroughly successful,this musician was ousted from
• his position by Lully, and died in England in 1677.
• 1632 (?). Matthew Lock (Exeter). Composer of incidental music to
• plays (The Tempest, Macbeth, etc.), one of which (Psyche)
• was published under the title of “The English Opera.”
• 1633. Jean Batiste Lully (Florence). Migrated to France at an early age;
• obtained great power at the court of Louis XIV., and monopolized
• French opera for many years. He wrote at least thirty ballets and
• twenty operas. Lully died in 1687.
• 1635. G. V. Draghi. Italian composer who settled in England and wrote
• incidental music and act tunes.
• 1637. Bernardo Pasquini (Tuscany). Wrote a few operas for Rome;
• a fine polyphonic composer.
• 1640. Giovanni Buononcini (Modena). Father of a more famous son;
• wrote five operas, which remain in MS.
• 1645. Alessandro Stradella (Venice?), 1645-81. Although more
• famous for his church music, wrote eleven operas.
• 1645. Francesco Rossi (Bari). Wrote four operas for Venice.
• 1646. Johann Thiele (Naumburg). Composer of opera and also of
• Singspiel. His Singspiel, Adam and Eve, produced in 1678,
• was the first of such works to be publicly performed in Germany,
• and is interesting as being the forerunner of many a subsequent work
• of the same class which has obtained world-wide popularity.
• 1646. Akebar, Roi de Mogol, the first French opera (words and music by
• the Abbé Mailly), performed at Carpentras.
• 1649. Pascal Colasse (Rheims). Wrote many operas, after the model
• of Lully. [Pg 218]
• 1650. Marais. Composer of French opera; died 1718.
• 1658. Henry Purcell (London), 1658-95. English composer of great
• dramatic power and of marked originality. Wrote music for
• many masques, plays, and for the first real English opera,
• Dido and Æneas; had it not been for the powerful personality
• of Handel, which dwarfed all other matters musical during
• the time he lived in London, Purcell might have founded a real
• school of English opera. Chief works: Dido and Æneas (1677),
• The Indian Queen (1690), Dryden’s Tempest (1690), Dioclesian
• (1690), King Arthur (1691), Bonduca (1695).
• 1659. Alessandro Scarlatti (Trapani), 1659-1725. Composer of one
• hundred and fifteen operas; is important as the first to largely
• employ set forms in his works. His use of the Da capo Aria,
• although at first attended with success, became so popular as
• to be the means of its own undoing. He also uses the orchestral
• ritornello, occasionally employed by Monteverde, and is the
• first composer to make full use of the orchestra for the
• accompaniment of recitative. While histrionically interesting,
• little of his music would be accepted to-day.
• 1659. Francesco A. Pistocchi (Palermo). A memberof the Bolognese
• school of composers.
• 1660. André Campra (Aix, Provence). Popular writer of French opera,
• who attempted to combine the features of the Italian and French
• schools; he produced about thirty works of high rank.
• 1661. J. A. Perti (Bologna). Another member of the Bolognese school;
• produced operas in his native town and at Venice.
• 1667. Antonio Lotti (Venice). Produced an opera before he was
• sixteen years of age, and wrote many others in after life.
• 1667. Dr. Pepusch (Berlin). Famous German composer who
• settled in London, and collected the songs and pieces which
• made up The Beggar’s Opera, the first of a long line of
• such ballad operas. [Pg 219]
• 1670 (?). Johann Conradi. Early writer of German opera;
• produced works at Hamburg.
• 1672. Giovanni Batiste Buononcini (Modena), 1672-1750 (?).
• Writer of twenty-two operas; mainly famous as having been the
• selected composer pitted against Handel, with disastrous results
• to both parties financially.
• 1672. André Destouches (Paris). Wrote a famous opera, Issé;
• and many other works for the stage.
• 1674. Reinhard Keiser (Weissenfels), 1674-1739. First important
• composer of German opera, composing sometimes as many as
• eight in one year; one hundred and sixteen works stand to his
• name, many with the recitatives in German and the arias in Italian.
• 1675. Marc Antonio Buononcini (Modena). Wrote an opera, Camilla,
• which was played sixty-four times in England during four years;
• brother of Handel’s rival.
• 1677. Production of Purcell’s Dido and Æneas, the first real English opera.
• 1678 (?). Antonio Caldara (Venice). Wrote sixty-six operas, besides a
• large number of oratorios and other works.
• 1680 (?). Senesino. Famous male soprano, who appeared in many of
• the operas Handel wrote for London; he retired from the stage in
• 1735 with a fortune of £15,000.
• 1681. Johann Mattheson (Hamburg). Opera singer and composer
• and a friend of Handel, in some of whose operas he appeared.
• 1683. Jean Phillippe Rameau (Dijon), 1683-1764. One of the early
• fathers of French opera, and second only in importance to Lully;
• produced many operas, and influenced Gluck, who heard some of
• his works in Paris.
• 1684. Francesco Durante (Naples). Wrote occasionally for the stage,
• but mostly for the church.
• 1685. George Frederick Handel (Hallé), 1685-1759.
• Wrote operas for Italy, Germany, and England. In great contrast to
• the music of his oratorios, his opera music sounds antiquated and [Pg 220]
• dull; its only performance to-day is the occasional singing of an air
• from one of the operas.
• 1686. Niccola Porpora (Naples), 1686-1767. Wrote many operas,
• mainly consisting of florid arias and vocal gymnastics; a
• wonderful singing-master, who turned out some excellent pupils.
• 1698. P. A. D. B. Metastasio (Rome). One of the greatest of librettists;
• he furnished subjects for operatic treatment for a vast number
• of composers, including Gluck and Mozart.
• 1699. Johann A. Hasse (Bergedorf), 1699-1783. Fertile opera composer,
• who produced over one hundred works with success. Hasse possessed
• great gifts of melody, and was fortunate in having a remarkably fine
• singer in his wife, who acted as exponent of many of the leading parts.
• 1700. Faustina Hasse (Venice). Sang also for Handel, and was very popular
• in London; her salary for 1726 was £2,000; a great rivalry existed
• between Hasse and Cuzzoni.
• 1700. Francesca Cuzzoni (Modena). Also sang for Handel; this is the
• lady whom he threatened to throw out of the window unless
• she sang what he wished. She died in poverty in 1770.
• 1700. Nicolo Logroscino (Naples). Wrote comicoperas, and is credited
• with the invention of the concerted finale; his operas are all
• in the Neapolitan dialect.
• 1701. K. H. Graun (Wahrenbrüch). Wrote twenty-seven operas, which
• contain melodies and good arias. He is better known by his church
• cantatas, especially Der Tod Jesu.
• 1703. G. M. Caffarelli (Naples). Famous singer, said to have been kept
• by Porpora for five years to one page of exercises and then
• dismissed as the greatest singer in Europe. He had great success
• in male soprano parts. [Pg 221]
• 1705. Giovanni Carestini (Ancona). Famous male contralto, who sang
• for Handel in London.
• 1705. C. B. Farinelli (Naples). Another pupil of Porpora, who sang for
• the party opposed to Handel; one of the most renowned singers
• the world has ever produced.
• 1709. Egidio Duni (Matera). Seems to have founded opera comique
• in France, writing many such works for the Parisian stage.
• 1710. Thomas Arne (London), 1710-78. One of the most famous
• of early English opera writers; besides many masques
• (including Milton’s Comus) he wrote the opera Artaxerxes,
• which enjoyed many years of popularity. Arne is best known
• to-day by the incidental music which he wrote to Shakespeare’s
• Tempest, the song, “Where the Bee sucks,” being world known.
• 1710. G. V. Pergolesi (Jesi), 1710-36. A composer of great promise, whose
• early death may be much lamented. Although best known by his
• church music, he had many merits as a writer of opera. His best
• work in this direction is a short operetta, La Serva Padrona.
• 1712. J. J. Rousseau (Paris), 1712-78, the famous litterateur, wrote operas,
• the most famous of which, Le Devin du Village, may claim to have
• been the first opera comique; its success was enormous, but the
• orchestration and some of the details are not Rousseau’s.
• 1714. Nicolo Jommelli (Aversa), 1714-74. One of the best composers of the
• Neapolitan school, who combined skilful design with melodious and
• expressive themes. Mozart thought much of his music and extolled
• his operas; his sacred music alone has come down to our day.
• 1714. Cristopher Willibald Gluck (Weidenwang), 1714-87. The first of the
• great reformers of opera. Besides a very large number of works written [Pg 222]
• on old models, his newer-fashioned and enduring masterpieces include
• Orfeo (1762), Alceste (1767), Iphigénie en Aulide (1774), Amide (1777),
• Iphigénie en Tauride (1778).
• 1725. Gaetano Guadagni (Lodi). A great male contralto who sang for Handel
• and created a furore in London.
• 1726. F. A. D. Philidor (Dreux). Famous chess player and operatic composer;
• was a prolific writer. He was the first to introduce the unaccompanied
• quartet upon the stage. His happiest essay was upon the English subject
• Tom Jones.
• 1728. J. A. Hiller (Görlitz). Established the Singspiel, composing fourteen
• of these works, which met with pronounced success.
• 1728. Nicolo Piccini (Bari). A good composer, now mostly remembered as
• the opponent of Gluck; while the fact militated against the success of
• his operas upon their production, it has kept his memory green and
• has gained attention for his music, which, although on the prevalent
• model of its time, has much merit.
• 1729. Guiseppe Sarti (Faenza). Produced many operas of great excellence,
• which are forgotten to-day. His triumphs were won in such contrasted
• centres as Milan and St. Petersburg.
• 1729. P. A. Monsigny (St. Omer). Composed many forgotten operas; while
• possessing melodic gifts he had little training, and his scoring and
• constructive powers were weak. His best works are Le Déserteur (1769),
• and Félix ou l’enfant trouvé (1777).
• 1732. Joseph Haydn (Rohrau), 1732-1809, themaster who excelled in so many
• branches of the art, made no serious claim to be a composer of opera.
• A few works were written by him for the stage while he was attached
• to Count Esterhazy, but they can in no way compare with his labours in
• other fields, nor had they any bearing upon the growth and development
• of opera as an art form.
• 1733. F. J. Gossec (Hainault). A Belgian composer of some repute in his day;
• his operas were mostly written for Paris. [Pg 223]
• 1734. A. M. G. Sacchini (Pozzuoli), 1734-86. A composer of dramatic gifts
• much influenced by Gluck, whose compositions quite overshadow
• those of his follower. Sacchini wrote over forty operas.
• 1739. K. D. von Dittersdorf (Vienna). Composed very many operas, both
• serious and light. He is best known by the Singspiel, Doctor und
• Apotheke (1786).
• 1741. A. E. M. Grétry (Liége). A fertile composer, very gifted for the
• writing of opera comique, wrote fifty operas for Paris. He had
• a knack of cleverly illustrating the stage situation, and although
• his harmonies were so thin that it was said that one could “draw
• a coach and four between the bass and the first fiddle,” he yet seems
• to have been more apt in his musical conceptions than many a more
• cultured musician.
• 1741. Giovanni Paisiello (Tarento). May be reckoned amongst the most
• prolific of Italian composers of his period. He was one of the first
• to introduce the concerted finale into serious opera, this form having
• hitherto been almost entirely confined to light opera. His Barber of
• Seville became so famous as almost to wreck the production of an
• opera under the same title by Rossini.
• 1743. Lucretia Agujari (Ferrara). Was a singer of extraordinary ability
• and compass.
• 1745. Ludwig Fischer (Mainz). Also a singer of great compass, having
• a round bass voice of two and a half octaves.

[Audio]

• He was a friend of Mozart’s, and sang in the production of
• Entführung aus dem Serail.
• 1748. William Shield (Durham). Composer to Covent Garden Theatre;
• wrote operas both serious and comic. He appears to have possessed
• great melodic gifts, and his many works are notable for their vigour
• and their tunefulness. He died in 1829. [Pg 224]
• 1749. The Abbé Vogler (Würzburg), 1749-1814. Was a man of many parts;
• he wrote upon theatrical matters, and composed music for the organ, for
• instruments, for the church, and for the stage. His operatic music is
• perhaps of the least importance, although his stage productions
• number some sixteen pieces.
• 1749. Domenico Cimarosa (Aversa). Was in his day a most popular
• composer of opera, sixty-six fine works standing to his credit.
• He made his mark more especially in his comic operas, of which
• Il matrimonio segreto (1792) is the best known.
• 1749. Gertrude Elizabeth Mara (Cassel). A fine singer, made little
• impression upon Mozart, but still appears to have been a great artist.
• She had a beautiful voice and great facility; she was one of
• Handel’s best singers in England.
• 1750. Antonio Salieri (Legnano). Wrote thirty-seven operas and a Singspiel.
• His works were modelled upon those of Gluck, and present
• no special features of interest.
• 1752. J. F. Reichardt (Königsberg). Wrote some moderately successful operas,
• and some important specimens of Singspiel, mostly for Berlin.
• 1752. N. A. Zingarelli (Naples). Was a prolific operatic composer, who penned
• some thirty operas, besides much sacred music. His style was recommended
• by Napoleon to Cherubini, much to the disgust of the last-named composer.
• 1754. Peter Winter (Mannheim), 1754-1825. Wrote a very large number of
• tuneful and melodious operas. His works have not survived to the present
• day, being structurally weak, but they were very successful during the
• composer’s life and for a few years afterwards.
• 1756. Vincenzo Righini (Bologna). Was operatic singer, composer, and
• conductor. His twenty operas were many of them produced at Berlin,
• where he was for some years conductor of the Italian Opera. [Pg 225]
• 1756. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Salzburg), 1756-91. The long list
• of Mozart’s operas (many of them written in youth) includes
• Idomeneo (1781), Die Entführung aus dem Serail (1782),
• Le Nozze di Figaro (1786), Don Giovanni (1787),
• Cosi fan tutte (1790), La Clemenza di Tito (1791),
• Die Zauberflöte (1791).
• 1760. Maria Luigi C. Z. S. Cherubini (Florence), 1760-1842. An accomplished
• musician in all departments; wrote fine operas, containing a wealth
• of sterling music. His chief operas are La Finta Principessa (1785),
• Giulio Sabino (1786), Démophon (1788), Lodoiska (1791), Médée (1797),
• Les deux Journées (1800), Anacreon (1803), Faniska (1806),
• Les Abencerages (1813), Ali Baba (1833).
• 1760. Aloysia Weber (Mannheim). A vocalist for whom Mozart conceived
• a great affection, eventually, however, marrying her sister.
• The part of “Constance,” in Die Entführung aus dem Serail,
• was written for her.
• 1761. Katherina Cavalieri (Währing). Was asinger for whom both
• Mozart and Salieri wrote special parts in their operas. Mozart said
• of her that “she was a singer of whom Germany might well be proud.”
• 1763. Stephen Storace (London). Produced some early operas in Vienna,
• where he formed a friendship with Mozart. On his return to London
• he produced The Haunted Tower (1789), The Pirates (1792), and
• many other works, which attained very great success. He is almost the
• earliest example of an English composer introducing the concerted finale.
• 1763. Etienne Henri Méhul (Givet). Had a wonderful talent for opera,
• of which he produced a great quantity of examples, in addition to
• writing ballets and operettas. His best known works are Uthal and
• Joseph. Méhul died in 1822.
• 1763. J. F. Lesueur (Abbeville). Wrote a certain number of operas for Paris,
• of which the best is Les Bardes. The march of time has left Lesueur [Pg 226]
• behind, in company with many another composer of considerable
• but not commanding merits.
• 1766. F. X. Süssmayer (Steyer). Is chiefly known to fame as being a sort
• of “hack” to Mozart, writing recitatives and filling in details for the
• great and busy composer, whose factotum he was for some years.
• 1766. G. Crescentini (Urbania). Was a famous sopranist, one of the >last of
• his class; he won favour from many, including the Emperor Napoleon,
• who showered benefits upon him. He not only sang magnificently, but
• composed arias to suit his own voice and special style.
• 1766. Joseph Weigl (Eisenstadt). Wrote onefamous work, Schweizer Familie,
• and manyothers of less import, numbering thirty-one in all,
• besides ballets.
• 1767. Henri Berton (Paris). Wrote many operas. He is interesting, moreover, as
• an early instance of a composer penning his own libretti. His music was
• often written in conjunction with others, such as Cherubini, Méhul,
• and Spontini.
• 1768. Elizabeth Billington (London). Was a prima donna of exceptional
• compass. During a long and varied career she appeared on the boards
• of many an operatic stage in Europe; her successes were, however,
• largely won in England.
• 1770. Ludwig von Beethoven (Bonn), 1770-1827. Beethoven’s single opera,
• Fidelio, was produced at Vienna in 1806.
• 1771. Ferdinand Paer (Parma). Was an Italian composer of many operas,
• both serious and comic; his Eleanor seems to have inspired
• Beethoven’s Fidelio.
• 1773. C. S. Catel (l’Aigle). Wrote many operatic works for the Paris Opera.
• His music was looked upon by the French public as “academic”
• because he held a professorship at the Conservatoire; hence it stood
• condemned before trial and had little chance. Catel was associated
• with Cherubini in the composition of one opera. [Pg 227]
• 1774. G. L. P. Spontini (Majolate), 1774-1851. One of the most interesting
• personalities in the history of opera. Although he wrote Italian opera
• for Naples, his great successes were achieved in the field of French
• grand opera, of which he remains one of the shining ornaments.
• His chief operas are La Vestale (1807), Ferdinand Cortez (1809),
• Olympia (1821), Alcidor (1825); none are now performed.
• 1774. C. E. F. Weyse (Altona). Was a composer of Danish opera, whose
• works, however, have not penetrated beyond the country for
• which they were written. He seems to have been one of the
• earliest to introduce the Scandinavian Volkslied to the stage.
• 1775. F. A. Boieldieu (Rouen). Is world known by his opera,
• La Dame Blanche, produced in Paris in 1825, one of many
• works, but the only one at all known to fame. He spent eight
• years in Russia writing operas and ballets for that country, but
• his greatest achievements belong to his second Parisian period.
• 1775. Nicolo Isouard (Malta). Is another composer of works for the
• Parisian houses, no less than thirty-four operas standing to his
• redit. Isouard and Boieldieu were in keen rivalry, to their great
• advantage, since both put forth their best work.
• 1780. Angelica Catalani. Was the possessor of a voice of wonderful
• flexibility, with a speciality for chromatic scales. For the periodt
• at which she flourished, she probably made more money than any
• other artist. Her greatest success seems to have been as “Susanne”
• in Mozart’s Nozze di Figaro.
• 1782. D. F. E. Auber (Caen). Was one of the greatest masters of opera
• comique; his melodious style and piquant orchestration are models
• of their kind, and have secured a lasting vogue for his works, the
• best known of which are Masaniello (1828), Fra Diavolo (1830),
• Le Chevale de Bronze (1835), Le Domino Noir (1837),
• Les Diamants de la Couronne (1842). [Pg 228]
• 1782. Conradin Kreutzer (Mösskirch). Wrote a number of successful
• operas, his powers as a composer of attractive arias being considerable.
• His fairy opera, Der Verschwender, may still occasionally be heard
• in Germany.
• 1784. Louis Spohr (Brunswick), 1784-1859. Is a composer mostly known
• in England by his sacred music and his violin compositions. His
• claims as a writer of operas must not, however, be overlooked, his
• Faust being in the van with regard to Romanticism in opera.
• His Jessonda also met with considerable favour, and its overture
• often gains a hearing in our concert rooms.
• 1784. Francesco Morlacchi (Perugia). Was chorus-master of the Italian
• Opera at Dresden, for which town he wrote a large number of
• works, successful in their day, but now never heard. He mostly
• excelled in the composition of light, sparkling, and superficial
• music.
• 1786. Carl Maria von Weber (Eutin), 1786-1826. Besides many early
• works, which call for no special mention, Weber’s operatic
• productions include Der Freischütz, Euryanthe (1823),
• and Oberon (1826).
• 1786. Henry Rowley Bishop (London). Was a most prolific writer of
• operas for the London theatres, eighty-two of such works standing
• to his name; many of these, however, do not merit the term “opera”
• as we understand it to-day. Bishop was most effective in his
• choruses and his writing for the voice generally.
• 1787. M. E. Carafa (Naples). Wrote thirty-five operas, which met
• with great success in Italy; he is now a forgotten composer.
• 1790. Alberico Curioni (Naples?). Was a famous tenor singer who
• met with great success in London, notably in the opera Medea.
• 1790. Nicola Vaccaj (Tolentino). Wrote many Italian operas, particularly
• for Venice. One at least of his works was also presented in London, [Pg 229]
• where he lived for a short time.
• 1791. Giacomo Meyerbeer (Berlin), 1791-1864. Is a very notable figure
• in the annals of opera, and his best works still survive in the
• repertoires of the leading houses. These are Robert le Diable (1831),
• Les Huguenots (1836), Le Prophète (1849), L’Étoile du Nord (1854),
• Dinorah (1859), and L’Africaine (1864).
• 1791. L. J. F. Hérold (Paris). Is best known by his Zampa and Le Pré aux
• Clercs, both of which are frequently before the public.
• 1791. P. J. Lindpaintner (Coblenz). Wrote twenty-eight operas, mostly
• forgotten now. The best seems to be Der Vampyr.
• 1792. G. A. Rossini (Pesaro), 1792-1868. Is world known, if only for
• his William Tell music. From his enormous list of operatic works,
• the following may be selected for mention: Tancredi (1813), L’Italiani
• in Algeri (1813), Il Barbiere di Siviglia (1816),La Cenerentola (1817),
• La Gazza Ladra (1817), Semiramide (1823), Mosé in Egitto (1818),
• Guillaume Tell (1829).
• 1794. Luigi Lablache (Naples). Was a magnificent bass singer who delighted
• Europe. He excelled in both serious and comic parts, and was a
• well-equipped artist.
• 1795. G. B. Rubini (Romano). Was equally celebrated as a tenor of the
• first rank. His greatest successes were attained in Rossini’s and
• Bellini’s operas.
• 1796. Giovanni Pacini (Catania). Wrote a large number of operas, of
• which the best is Saffo (Naples, 1840). His works total eighty
• specimens of opera alone, but most are written upon the pattern
• of Rossini.
• 1796. Heinrich Marschner (Zittau). Was a powerful composer of
• romantic opera. Hans Heiling is especially fine, while mention
• must also be made of Templer und Jüdin and of Der Vampyr.
• His operas are conceived in a kindred spirit to that of Weber’s. [Pg 230]
• 1797. Franz Schubert (Vienna), 1797-1828. Schubert’s importance as
• a writer of opera is small as compared with his achievement in
• other fields—such as song and symphony. The chief in degree
• are Fierrabras and Alfonso und Estella.
• 1797. Saverio Mercadante (Altamura). Wrote a number of operas
• on the Italian model, of which Il Guiramento (Milan, 1837)
• is the finest.
• 1797. Lucy Elizabeth Vestris (London). Made a great impression
• as a singer upon the opera habitués of her day. She was the
• original “Fatima” in the production of Oberon.
• 1797. Gaetano Donizetti (Bergamo). Wrote a very large number of
• operas, which present such opportunities to vocalists as to
• be frequently produced to-day. The chief ones in the modern
• repertoire are Lucia di Lammermoor (1835), Lucretia Borgia
• (1833), L’Elisir d’Amore, La Fille du Régiment (1840),
• Linda di Chamounix (1842), La Favorita (1840), Don Pasquale.
• 1798. Giudetta Pasta (Como). Was an Italian singer of great charm
• and ability; in Rossini’s operas she appears to have been
• almost unequalled.
• 1798. K. G. Reissiger (Belzig). A prolific composer, produced many
• operas of an “academic” class, which have not survived their day.
• 1799. J. F. F. E. Halévy (Paris). Wrote a vast number of French operas,
• the best known of which is La Juive.
• 1800. Antonio Tamburini (Faenza). Was a baritone singer and a
• member of the famous “Puritani” quartet, which delighted both
• London and Paris for so many years. He excelled in his
• interpretation of the baritone parts of operas of the Rossini school.
• 1801. Vincenzo Bellini (Catania). This famous opera composer
• is still known by the frequent performance of his best works—La
• Somnambula (1831), Norma (1831), I Puritani (1835). More
• might have come from this composer, had he not died at the [Pg 231]
• early age of thirty-four.
• 1802. John Barnett (Bedford). Was an English composer of a number
• of operas and of music for stage pieces. He has the credit of the
• first real English opera since Arne’s Artexerxes in his
• Mountain Sylph, produced in 1835. This is his best known work,
• but he wrote other operas, such as Fair Rosamund (1837) and
• Farinelli (1839).
• 1802. Louis Niedermeyer (Nyon). Had the misfortune to produce
• several operas which were mostly failures. He had, however,
• original ideas as to orchestration, and is worthy of remembrance
• for his gifts of melody.
• 1803. Adolphe Charles Adam (Paris). Wrote grand opera, ballet music,
• and opera comique, being only remembered for the last-named,
• for which he had real talent. His best work is Le Postillon de
• Longjumeau (1836).
• 1803. G. A. Lortzing (Berlin). Wrote many operas still popular in
• Germany; one indeed, Peter the Shipwright, has met with
• considerable success in this country. He wrote upon a model
• which Sullivan so excellently employed in his light operas.
• 1803. Hector Berlioz (Grenoble), 1803-69. An eccentric genius among
• musicians. Wrote operas such as Les Troyens and Benvenuto
• Cellini, which contain fine music, but which have never
• pleased the public, and which remain practically unperformed.
• 1804. Julius Benedict (Stuttgart). Although a German, is always looked
• upon as an English composer, his life having been spent in this
• country. He is best known by his often-performed Lily of Killarney,
• which dates from 1862. Benedict died in 1885.
• 1804. Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient (Hamburg). Must always remain
• a person of interest to musicians, in that she created the part of
• Leonora in Beethoven’s Fidelio upon its revival in 1822,
• when that work really gained a fair hearing. She was also an
• early exponent of Wagnerian parts (Senta, Venus, etc.). [Pg 232]
• 1804. Michael I. Glinka (Novospaskoi). Is the earliest of Russian
• opera composers to be known outside his own country, and
• he is important, not only for his compositions of Life for the
• Czar and Russlan, but also in that he founded a school of
• Russian opera which has brought forth much fruit.
• 1805. Luigi Ricci (Naples). Wrote a large number of operas, very
• famous in their day, but now forgotten.
• 1805. Manuel Garcia (Madrid). The wonderful centenarian: claims
• notice as the trainer of those fine operatic artists, Jenny Lind
• and Catherine Hayes.
• 1806. Henrietta Sontag (Coblenz). Was a charming and gifted soprano
• of European reputation, who delighted all hearers, and seems to have
• combined a charming personality with great artistic attainments.
• 1807. J. A. Tichatschek (Weckelsdorf). Was a Bohemian tenor who
• made for himself a great reputation in all the grand operas of
• the greater masters. He was also the original “Rienzi” and
• “Tannhäuser.”
• 1808. A. L. Clapisson (Naples). Was a graceful composer of many
• operas which pleased in their day, but which have had no
• continuance of popular favour.
• 1808. Michael William Balfe (Dublin), 1808-1888. Is the best known
• of English opera writers of his period, and his Bohemian Girl (1843)
• is familiar to all. Other of his successes are The Siege of Rochelle
• (1835), The Maid of Artois (1836), Blanche de Nevers (1863),
• Il Talismano (1874).
• 1808. Michael A. A. Costa (Naples). Was best known as a conductor,
• more especially of the Italian opera in England. He wrote a few
• forgotten specimens, but is mainly of importance as a wielder
• of the bâton. Costa died in 1884. [Pg 233]
• 1808. P. L. P. Dietsch (Dijon). Was also a conductor. His chief claim
• to fame seems to have been that he purchased the libretto of
• Wagner’s Flying Dutchman, and clothed it with absolutely
• forgotten music.
• 1808. Albert Gnsar (Antwerp). Wrote a number of comic operas for
• Paris. They seem to have been works of elegance and grace,
• without special distinction.
• 1808. Marie Felicita Malibran (Paris). Performed in opera at the
• age of five. She seems to have had no rivals as a singer, and
• excelled in all parts which she undertook. She created an indelible
• impression upon all that were fortunate enough to hear her.
• 1809. Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (Hamburg), 1809-1847. The claims
• of Mendelssohn as a writer of opera are not serious, and are confined
• to a few early and incomplete works. The best, musically, is the
• fragment of Lorelei.
• 1809. F. Ricci (Naples). Like his brother Luigi, wrote operas which have
• not survived their generation.
• 1809. J. H. Hatton (Liverpool). Is better known as a writer of songs
• than of operas. He wrote, however, a good deal of incidental
• music for the stage, as well as one real opera.
• 1810. Robert Schumann (Zwickau), 1810-56. Schumann’s one contribution
• to the field of opera is his Genoveva, which is seldom heard, in
• spite of many unquestionable beauties.
• 1810. Otto Nicolai (Königsberg). Was a capable composer and conductor.
• He is chiefly known to fame by his masterpiece, The Merry Wives
• of Windsor, which was produced in Berlin in 1849.
• 1810. Félicien C. David (Cadenet). A French composer of operas; is not
• to be confused with Ferdinand David the violinist, and friend of
• Mendelssohn. Félicien wrote grand operas for Paris, and his greatest
• success seems to have been Lalla Rookh (1862).
• 1811. P. J. A. Varney (Paris). Is one of the minor lights of French
• Opera, his works, which are of small importance, being in
• the light style. [Pg 234]
• 1811. C. Ambroise Thomas (Metz), 1811-96. Was one of the greatest
• representatives of modern French opera, who possessed real talent
• for writing for the stage. He learnt much from both Gounod and
• Hérold, and is best known by his operas Mignon (1866) and
• Hamlet (1868).
• 1812. F. von Flotow (Bentendorf). Is the composer of Martha,
• an ever-popular light opera; the music of this, as of his many other
• works, is by no means exalted, but pleases by its melodious and
• tuneful attractiveness.
• 1812. Giulia Grisi (Milan). Was one of the most famous operatic artists
• of last century, and the soprano of the “Puritani” quartet (Grisi,
• Rubini, Tamburini, and Lablache). Like so many artists of that
• period, her great achievements were in the works of Rossini.
• 1812. Cavaliere Mario (Cagliari). Was an even greater tenor, who
• eventually married Grisi. Like his wife he was the idol of
• the English and French capitals for many seasons.
• 1812. Fanny Persiani (Rome). Was yet another singer of Rossinian
• opera. She was a fine actress as well as a vocalist, and
• commanded universal admiration.
• 1813. Enrico Petrella (Palermo). Produced an Italian opera practically
• every year for many years. This composer has been dead
• for nearly thirty years, and his operas seem to have shared
• the same fate.
• 1813. Richard Wagner (Leipsic), 1813-83. The names and dates
• of Wagner’s chief operas are:—Rienzi (Dresden) 1842;
• The Flying Dutchman (Dresden) 1843; Tannhäuser
• (Dresden) 1845; Lohengrin (Weimar) 1850;
• The Ring:—(1) Rheingold (Munich) 1859;
• (2) Die Walküre (Munich) 1870;
• (3) Siegfried (Bayreuth) 1876; (4)
• Gotterdämmerung, (Bayreuth) 1876;
• Tristan und Isolde (Munich) 1865;
• Die Meistersinger (Munich) 1868;
• Parsifal (Bayreuth), 1882.
• 1813. Giuseppe Verdi (Roncole) 1813-1901. Verdi’s operas are
• very numerous: these may perhaps be specially mentioned:—
• I Lombardi, 1843; Ernani, 1844; Rigoletto, 1851; [Pg 235]
• Il Trovatore, 1853; La Traviata, 1853;
• Un Ballo in Maschera, 1857; Aïda, 1871;
• Otello, 1887; Falstaff, 1893.
• 1813. A. S. Dargomizhsky (Toula). Is of considerable importance in the
• development of national Russian opera; of his works we may
• mention The Roussalka (1856) and The Stone Guest, only
• performed three years after his death, in 1872.
• 1813. G. A. Macfarren (London). So well known as a theorist; essayed
• many operas, of which Robin Hood was the most successful.
• Other of his works are The Devil’s Opera and Helvellyn.
• 1813. E. J. Loder (Bath). Was an English writer of operas, the best
• of which is the Night Dancers (1846).
• 1814. Emma Albertazzi (London). An English prima donna who
• married an Italian. She sang in all the chief houses of opera,
• but was a poor and indifferent actress.
• 1814. W. V. Wallace (Waterford). Is known to all by his tuneful, if
• ordinary, Maritana. He wrote better works, and his Lurline
• may be mentioned.
• 1815. G. Hippolyte Roger (Saint-Denis). Was a great French tenor,
• for whom Ambroise Thomas, Auber, Clapesson and others wrote
• operas. He unfortunately lost an arm, and had to give up the stage.
• 1817. Carlo Pedrotti (Verona). Wrote Italian operas, of which mention
• may be made of Tutti in Maschera and Il Favorito.
• 1817. Aimé Maillart (Montpellier). Won the Grand Prix de Rome,
• and wrote operas which had some measure of success.
• 1817. Francesco Lamperti (Savona). A great teacher of singing,
• whose pupils include Albani, Mariani, and Shakespeare. [Pg 236]
• 1818. C. F. Gounod (Paris), 1818-93. Besides the evergreen Faust
• (1859), Gounod’s other successes include The Mock Doctor,
• Philémon and Baucis, Mireille, and Romeo and Juliet,
• all of which are often heard.
• 1818. J. Sims Reeves (Woolwich). In his palmy days was often heard
• in opera, the tenor parts of many melodious operas in favour
• at the time exactly suiting his methods and style.
• 1818. A. N. Serov (Petersburg). Serov was a Russian composer who
• admired and followed Wagner; his works have their place in
• the annals of opera in his country.
• 1819. Jacques Offenbach (Cologne). A prolific composer of some
• seventy specimens of opera bouffe and operetta; in light works
• such as these he achieved almost unexampled success, and
• enjoyed immense popularity.
• 1820. Jenny Lind (Stockholm). This name is fresh in the memory
• of all, although its gifted possessor went the way of all flesh
• some thirty years ago. As a singer she commanded universal
• admiration, while as a woman she was looked up to and
• respected by all. Her triumphs in operatic soprano parts
• were such as to be seldom equalled.
• 1820. Franz von Suppé (Spalato). Was the German equivalent of
• Offenbach—a prolific writer of comic opera.
• 1821. C. A. F. Echert (Potsdam). Wrote an opera at the age of ten,
• and others at a later date. He won more fame, however, as a
• conductor, holding important posts in this capacity at Paris,
• Vienna, and Berlin.
• 1821. M. F. P. Viardot-Garcia (Paris). A young sister of Malibran,
• attained considerable celebrity as a singer and actress;
• she appeared not only in works of the Rossini school,
• but in the operas of Meyerbeer, Gluck, and others.
• 1821. Italo Gardoni (Parma). Was a tenor singer of repute, who
• to a considerable extent took the place of Mario; he sang
• frequently in London. [Pg 237]
• 1822. Apolloni. Was an Italian composer who wrote operas upon
• the early Verdi model, achieving one great success in L’Ebreo.
• 1822. Luigi Arditi (Crescentino). Although he composed a few operas,
• is more widely remembered as a conductor, he having wielded
• the bâton during many operatic seasons both in England and abroad.
• 1822. César Franck (Liége). His merits seem only now beginning to be
• recognized as a composer; wrote a small number of operas, of which
• the music appears to have been heard only in the concert room.
• 1822. F. M. V. Massé (Lorient). Wrote some operas in the style of
• Auber with very great success. A number of later works, some
• of which have been produced at Covent Garden, have been
• less favourably received.
• 1823. Edouard Lalo (Lille). The writer of some excellent violin music;
• includes among his writings one work, Le Roi d’ Ys, which is
• often to be heard.
• 1823. L. E. E. Reyer (Marseilles). Is yet another French composer
• of opera, chiefly known by his Sigurd, produced in 1884.
• 1823. Marietta Alboni (Cesena). Was a world-renowned contralto, who
• created a furore in London. She was set up as a sort of rival
• attraction to Jenny Lind, who was performing at another theatre,
• and was powerful enough to hold her own.
• 1824. Peter Cornelius (Mainz). Wrote a number of operas, of which
• The Barber of Bagdad seems to have been a kind of forerunner
• of Die Meistersinger, and is enormously in favour in Germany.
• 1824. Friedrich Smetana (Leitomischl). Is the father of Bohemian
• opera, and his work, The Bartered Bride, paved the way for a series
• of national operas which are dear indeed to the hearts of the Bohemians.
• He is important, also, as the model upon which Dvŏràk framed
• much of his work. [Pg 238]
• 1825. F. R. Hervé (Houdain). Wrote a very large number of French operettas
• of a very light trend, which are hardly likely to go down to posterity.
• 1826. Mathilde Marchesi (Frankfort). An eminent soprano vocalist, whose
• influence has been widely felt in the operatic world, not only by
• her performances, but also by her teaching. Her Ecole de Chant
• and vocal exercises are world known.
• 1826. Ivar Hallström (Stockholm). A Swedish composer of operas;
• has produced works of a distinctly national impress.
• 1827. Marie Carvalho (Marseilles). A French vocalist; was at one
• time in the first rank of artists of the grand opera and the opera
• comique. She specially excelled in her interpretations of the
• soprano characters of the Gounod operas.
• 1828. Antonio Cagnoni (Godiasco). Wrote a number of Italian operas
• of moderate quality; his attentions were mostly confined to
• opera buffa.
• 1828. Ferdinand Poise (Nîmes). Wrote a number of charming light works,
• somewhat in the style of his master Adam. Paris was the scene
• of his labours.
• 1829. Anton Rubinstein (Wechwotynecz). Bears a name well known in
• many musical fields: in opera he was hardly great, his music being
• non-dramatic in character. He wrote The Demon and a few
• “sacred operas.”
• 1829. Ciro Pinsuti (Siena). Is indeed popular as a writer of songs; it is not
• so well known that he includes amongst his larger works operas that
• have been produced at La Scala, Milan, and elsewhere.
• 1830. Karl Goldmark (Keszthely). The most famous opera by this
• composer is The Queen of Sheba, produced at Vienna in 1875;
• subsequent and less successful productions include Merlin (1886)
• and The Cricket on the Hearth (1896). [Pg 239]
• 1830. Edouard Lassen (Copenhagen). Another writer of melodious songs;
• produced three successful operas. He also succeeded Liszt as
• conductor at Weimar.
• 1830. Edmund Kretschmer (Ostritz). Had at one period a reputation as a
• composer of opera, which recent years have failed to maintain.
• 1831. T. C. J. Tietjens (Hamburg). One of the >most brilliant and
• successful prime donne of the nineteenth century; she excelled alike in
• light opera and grand opera, in secular music and in sacred. Her early
• death in 1877 was lamented by all who had heard her beautiful and
• artistic interpretations of the masterpieces of opera and of oratorio.
• 1832. A. C. Lecocq (Paris). A prolific composer of light French pieces
• in the manner of Offenbach. Not to be reckoned with as serious music,
• his compositions are notable for their sprightliness, vivacity, and verve.
• 1834. Pierre L. L. Benoit (Harlebeke). Is a Flemish composer and an apostle
• of a Flemish school of composition which he endeavours to form.
• Among his many works are operas and dramatic pieces.
• 1834. A. P. V. Borodine (S. Petersburg). Is well known as a chemist
• and an opera writer. His music, national in character, is best study
• froman operatic point of view in Prince Igor. Borodine’s music
• is also well known in the concert hall. He died in 1887.
• 1834. A. Ponchielli (Paderno). Although he diedas long ago as 1886,
• must be classed as a composer of the young Italian school.
• His chef d’œuvre, La Gioconda, often obtains a hearing.
• 1834. Charles Santley (Liverpool). Famous alike on the stage and
• in the concert hall; while his attentions have been latterly
• confined to oratorio. His was a familiar figure on the
• Covent Garden stage some forty years ago. [Pg 240]
• 1835. Filippo Marchetti (Bologna). A member of the Italian school
• of composers. Wrote many operas, Ruy Blas achieving
• great success.
• 1835. César A. Cui (Vilna). Has built up a reputation for himself
• amongst Russian composers for his works of every description,
• and he has an important place amongst those who have developed
• opera in Russia. William Ratcliff and Le Flibustier deserve
• special mention.
• 1835. C. C. Saint-Saëns (Paris). One of the most versatile and gifted
• of modern French composers; has enriched the world by a few
• operas and by the sacred drama Samson et Dalila, which is
• often heard in English concert rooms. More recent efforts
• include Henry VIII. and Phryne.
• 1836. Emil Hartmann (Copenhagen). Is one of the few operatic
• composers of Denmark. His music is not heard in England.
• 1837. Ernest Guiraud (New Orleans). A contemporary and co-worker
• of Délibes; wrote Piccolino and other pieces.
• 1837. F. C. T. Dubois (Rosney). The famous French organist; has
• also achieved certain success with his operas and ballets.
• 1837. Joseph Huber (Sigmaringen). A disciple of
• the German school. Wrote two operas, popular in
• their day.
• 1838. Georges Bizet (Paris). Is never likely tobe forgotten so
• long as Carmen attains to a tithe of its present popularity.
• This bright and sparkling work is deservedly in the front
• rank of favourite operas. Bizet wrote several unimportant
• operas before Carmen, but his early death prevented his
• giving to the world any successor to that famous opera. [Pg 241]
• 1838. Zelia Trebelli (Paris). A prima donna of high rank. She made
• her début at Madrid, and was successful in Germany and
• in London, where her appearances in Italian opera were
• very frequent.
• 1838. Frederic Clay (Paris). The composer of the popular
• “I’ll sing thee songs of Araby.” Wrote several light operas
• for Covent Garden and other English houses.
• 1839. C. P. L. Délibes (St. Germain du Val). Wrote bright and
• sparkling music, and was most successful in the ballet.
• Everyone is familiarw ith his Sylvia, and among his operas
• are Lakmé and Le Roi l’a dit.
• 1839. Carlos Gomez (Compinos). Was a Brazilian composer,
• whose opera Il Guarany was performed at Covent Garden.
• 1839. V. de Goncieres (Paris). Has produced several grand operas,
• none of which have met with continued success.
• 1839. Edward Napravnik (Königgratz). Was for a time the conductor
• of opera in Petersburg, and also wrote many national operas
• and songs.
• 1839. Joseph Rheinberger (Vaduz). Famous as a writer of organ music,
• and of achievements in almost all branches of composition; ventured
• also into the operatic field with his work Die Sieben Raben.
• 1840. Hermann Goetz (Königsberg). Was a short-lived composer,
• whose opera, The Taming of the Shrew, showed the possession
• of extraordinary gifts.
• 1840. P. Tchaïkovsky (Votinsk). This giftedand versatile composer
• is known in England only by his Eugene Oniegin, so far as
• opera is concerned.
• 1841. Antonin Dvŏrák (Kralup). The Bohemian composer’s operas are
• hardly as successful as his chamber music and his symphonies.
• 1841. Victor Nessler (Baldenheim). Wrote popular operas for Germany.
• Their music is not of high rank, but such works as
• Der Trumpeter von Säkkingen enjoy great popularity.
• 1841. Franco Faccio (Verona). Is an obscurecomposer of Italian opera,
• whose compositions display no particular originality. [Pg 242]
• 1841. Pauline Lucca (Vienna). A soprano vocalistwho appeared in
• operas of Meyerbeer and others. Alike in Germany, Russia,
• and England, she seems to have aroused the keenest interest
• and excitement. Her voice was one of extended compass and
• of a sympathetic quality.
• 1841. Emmanuel Chabrier (Ambert). Wrote some operas, the best
• of which was Le Roi malgré lui.
• 1842. Carl Millōcker (Vienna). Composer of Singspiel.
• 1842. Heinrich Hofmann (Berlin). Wrote music dramas and operas,
• and sought to compose light works on the grand opera plan,
• omitting all dialogue.
• 1842. Jules F. E. Massenet (Montand). Is one of the most famous
• living composers of French opera, many of whose works
• may be heard in this country. Hérodiade, Manon, Le Cid,
• Esclamonde, Werther, and other works testify to his
• ability and industry, and he is a factor to be reckoned
• with in the development of opera in France.
• 1842. Arrigo Boito (Padua). Is the composer of Mefistofele and
• of the unheard Nero.
• 1842. Edmund Audran (Lyons). Was a famous composer of comic
• opera, producing many light works in Paris and in London.
• 1842. A. S. Sullivan (London). Composed the opera Ivanhoe.
• He was also practically the originator of a charming form
• of comedy opera. He died in 1900.
• 1843. Christine Nilsson (Wexio). A Swedish soprano, and yet
• another of that brilliant band of gifted singers who delighted
• the habitués of the opera a few decades back.
• 1843. Adelina Patti (Madrid). First appeared in England in opera
• in 1861. Her successes were all made in Italian opera, with
• music of the florid type. Her appearances before the public
• are still frequent. [Pg 243]
• 1843. Hans Richter (Raab). Is one of the greatest of conductors,
• and the greatest living authority upon Wagner, whose pupil
• and friend he was. Dr. Richter conducts the German
• performances at Covent Garden, and was responsible for
• the first production of the Ring at Bayreuth in 1876.
• 1844. F. Cellier (London). Wrote light operas after the style of
• Sullivan, whose manner he successfully caught.
• 1844. Rimsky-Korsakoff (Tichwin). In the van of modern Russian
• musicians. In opera he created some successes, notably in
• The May Night. His last opera (the 15th) is entitled
• The Golden Cock.
• 1844. Emile Paladilhe (Montpellier). A member of the younger
• French school; chiefly known by his Patrie.
• 1846. H. C. A. G. Serpette (Nantes). Has also written French operas,
• but of a lighter style, pertaining to the Buffo character.
• 1846. Ignaz Brüll (Prossnitz). Has written a very large number of
• operas, the best known of which, The Golden Cross, has
• been produced in England by the Carl Rosa Company.
• His operas are of the German school.
• 1847. Augusta Holmes (Paris). Is one of the few women writers
• of opera.
• 1847. Alexander Mackenzie (Edinburgh). Has produced operas
• with the Carl Rosa Company, and has also unheard works
• in his desk awaiting a favourable opportunity for production.
• 1847. Amalie Materna (St. Georgen). A famous soprano of German
• opera, and a great Wagnerian singer, her impersonations of
• Brünnhilde being specially fine.
• 1847. Joseph Maas (Dartford). Was a good tenor vocalist, and an
• indifferent actor. Although often heard upon the stage, he
• was more appreciated in concert work. [Pg 244]
• 1848. Luigi Mancinelli (Orvieto). Is the popular conductor of Italian
• opera at Covent Garden. As a composer he is also known,
• both of opera and of oratorio.
• 1849. B. L. P. Godard (Paris). Wrote much musicin many styles.
• His operas did not attain to the popularity of his chamber
• music or pianoforte pieces.
• 1850. Albani (Chambly). Whose real name is Marie Lajeunesse, is
• familiar to all concert goers of the present day. Her operatic
• successes during the two last decades of the nineteenth
• century were many, and she sang well such parts as “Isolde”
• and “Elsa.”
• 1850. Zdenko Fibich (Bohemian). Has written operas of the type
• popularized in his country by Smetana.
• 1850. Robert Planquette (Paris). Composed the evergreen
• Cloches de Corneville, so dear to the heart of the
• Frenchman. His operettas are bright and sparkling.
• 1850. Anton Siedl (Pesth). A Wagnerian conductor of power. He
• has conducted on the Continent, in England, and in America.
• 1851. A. Goring Thomas (Ratton). This composer of so many
• favourite songs, wrote the operas Esmeralda and Nadeshda,
• from which excerpts are frequently heard.
• 1851. Vincent d’Indy (Paris). Is a prominent modern French
• composer; his Fervaal is a fine dramatic work.
• 1851. Tamagno (Turin). A celebrated operatic tenor, whose fees
• of £400 per night in America are said to have created a
• record for male vocalists. Tamagno died in 1905.
• 1851. Jan Blockx (Belgian composer). Is the director of the Flemish
• School of Music in Antwerp; he has written several operas,
• of which mention may be made of Princesse d’Auberge.
• 1852. Frederick Cowen (Jamaica). The well-known song-writer and
• conductor has made several essays on opera with more
• or less success. [Pg 245]
• 1852. C. V. Stanford (Dublin). Is one of the strongest hopes of the
• English school of opera composition; his various efforts,
• although hardly crowned with unqualified success, are
• almost all noteworthy and distinctly great in achievement.
• 1852. Frederick Corder (London). Composed Nordisa for the
• Carl Rosa Company.
• 1852. Jean de Reszke (Warsaw). One of the greatest of operatic
• tenors, whose interpretations of the Wagner rôles has
• seldom been equalled.
• 1852. Barton McGuckin (Dublin). Tenor vocalist of repute.
• 1854. Engelbert Hamperdinck (Siegburg). The composer of
• the popular Hansel and Gretel.
• 1855. E. de Reszke (Warsaw). Brother of the famous tenor, and
• an almost equally great baritone; excels in such parts as
• “Sachs” (Meistersinger), etc.
• 1857. Alfred Bruneau (Paris). An extremely modern French
• composer, whose striking works create much discussion.
• 1858. Giacomo Puccini (Lucca). Is an Italian composer whose
• works are now enjoying very great popularity, quite a
• number of them being constantly before the public.
• 1858. R. Leoncavallo (Naples). Is another member of the Italian
• school, and the composer of Pagliacci.
• 1859. T. J. Paderewski (Podolia). The world-renowned pianist;
• has also composed a fairly successful opera.
• 1860. Gustave Charpentier (French school). Has written Louise,
• a familiar and popular work across the Channel.
• 1864. Richard Strauss (Munich). The modern writer of symphonic
• poems; has produced operas. He is a conductor of the
• Royal Berlin Opera House.
• 1864. Pietro Mascagni (Leghorn). Is the composer of the tuneful
• Cavalleria Rusticana and other works.

[Pg 246]

Among other contemporary composers and singers of opera may be mentioned:—

Financial Aid Granted to Operatic Schemes
from State or Municipal Funds.

(Drawn from the Government return made in pursuance
of the Address of the House of Commons of
March 2nd, 1903.)

Note.—As a grant, when made, is often given both for the drama and for operatic purposes, and sometimes for the support of musical functions generally, such as concerts and band performances, it is difficult to arrive at the actual figures for opera alone. But the above quotations will afford a general idea as to the conditions obtaining with regard to subsidies in the various countries to which reference is made.

Glossary of Terms mainly used in Opera.

List of Instruments used in the Orchestras of
Composers of different periods of Opera.

Except for the smaller number of strings this orchestra is pretty well as large as a modern full operatic orchestra, but its constitution and effect are absolutely different, and of course in the present day hardly producible. The gambas were used to accompany Orpheus, the violas Euridice, the guitars Charon, the organs Apollo, and the trombones Plato. [Pg 261]

This, of course, is an approximation to the modern orchestra, but we must notice the absence of clarionets and percussion instruments.

This is the ordinary orchestra of the “classical period” of music.

And in addition, upon the stage—

Bibliography of Opera.

• Adam, 85, 189, 207
• Ambroise Thomas’s Hamlet, Mignon, 90
• Arensky, 124
• Aria from Gluck’s Orfeo, 50-51
• —— Verdi’s Aïda, 73-74
• Ariosti, 190
• Arne, 93-94
• Arne’s Artaxerxes, 93
• Arrieta, 129
• Arsani, 208
• Auber, 87-88, 175, 207
• Auber’s Masaniello, 87;
• Fra Diavolo, 88
• Bach, 61
• Balfe, 94-95
• Balfe’s The Siege of Rochelle, 95;
• Bohemian Girl, 95, 187
• Ballad Opera, 15, 94, 186
• Ballet, 188-189
• Bardi, Count, 33
• Barnett’s The Mountain Sylph, 94
• Bayreuth, 179, 180-183
• —— Wagner’s theatre at, 103
• Beethoven, 13, 14, 24, 27, 44, 55, 61, 76, 77, 99
• Beethoven’s Fidelio, 55, 70, 84, 170, 177, 185
• Beggar’s Opera, 91-93, 186
• Bellini, 15, 72, 173 [Pg 265]
• Bellini’s La Sonnambula, Norma, 72
• Benda, 51
• Benedict, 96
• Benedict’s The Lily of Killarney, 96
• Berlin, 178
• Berlioz, 87, 175, 209
• Bishop, Henry, 94, 157
• Bizet, 89
• Bizet’s Carmen, 89
• Boieldieu, 85, 207
• Boieldieu’s La Dame Blanche, 85
• Boito, 130-132, 141
• Boito’s Nero and Orestiade, 131;
• Mefistofele, 131, 173, 195
• Borodin, 124, 125
• Borodin’s Prince Igor, 125
• Bruneau, 141, 143
• Bruneau’s L’Attaque du Moulin, L’Outragan,
• La Rêve, Messidor, 143
• Budapest, 178
• Bunning, Herbert, 148
• Bunning’s Princess Osra, 145, 148
• Buononcini, 42, 45-46, 64, 154, 190
• Caccini, 37, 39
• Caldara, 41, 42, 207
• Cambert, Robert, 42
• Campion, 187
• “Canzone” by Mozart, 52
• Carl Rosa Opera Company, 159
• Caruso, 204
• Catalani, 204
• Cavalli, 10, 40
• Cavos, 123
• César-Cui, 124, 125
• César-Cui’s Angelo, Ratcliff, The Flibustier, 125
• Cesti, 41
• Charpentier, 144
• Cherubini, 14, 63, 66, 84, 168, 175, 199
• Cherubini’s Ali Baba, Les Abencerages, Les deux Journées, 84;
• Water Carrier, 159, 200
• Chorale from Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots, 86
• Cilea, 134
• Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur, 134, 188
• Cimarosa, 51, 65, 207
• Cimarosa’s The Secret Marriage, 65
• Companies, opera, 154;
• travelling, 158
• Composers, stories of, 209-211
• Concerted Finale, Invention of, 12, 64
• Contest, a notable, 65
• Coperario, 187
• Corder, 147
• Corder’s Nordisa, 147
• Cornelius, 79
• Cornelius’ The Barber of Bagdad, 80
• Covent Garden opera, 154, 157
• Cowen, 147
• Cowen’s Harold, Signa, The Lady of Lyons, 147;
• Thorgrim, 147, 159;
• Pauline, 159
• Curiosities of opera, 189-198
• Da Capo Aria, Birth of, 11;
• weakness of, 21;
• reform of, 22 [Pg 266]
• Dargomijsky, 124
• Dargomijsky’s The Stone Guest, The Water-Sprite, 124
• Debussy, 144
• Debussy’s Pelleas et Melisande, 144
• De Lara, 148
• De Lara’s Amy Robsart, Messaline, The Light of Asia, 148
• Délibes, Léo, 90
• Délibes’ Coppélia, Lakmé, Le Roi l’a dit, 90
• D’Indy, Vincent, 144
• Donizetti, 15, 72, 173, 207
• Donizetti’s La Favorita, La Fille du Régiment,
• L’Elisir d’Amore, 72;
• Lucretia Borgia, 72, 173;
• Lucia di Lammermoor, 174
• Dresden, 179
• Dubois, 144
• Dvŏrák, 126, 128, 178
• Dvŏrák’s Demetrius, Der Bauer ein Schelm, King and Collier, Rusalka, Wanda, 128;
• Armida, 128, 178
• Early Russian composers, 123
• Elgar’s Apostles, 117
• Empiricism, Musical, 12
• English Opera, 44-47, 91
• Enterprise, Operatic, in England, 150
• Farinelli, 203, 204
• Fibich, 127, 178
• Flotow, 79
• Flotow’s Martha, 79
• Franchetti, 134
• French Opera, 42-43
• French School, the, 81-90
• Gade, 129
• Galuppi, 64
• German, Edward, 148
• German Opera, 43-44
• German School, the, 76-80
• Giordano, 134
• Giordano’s Andrea Chenier, 134
• Glinka, 123, 127
• Glinka’s A Life for the Czar, Russia and Ludmilla, 123
• Gluck, 13-15, 20, 22-24, 31, 42, 48-51, 61, 63,
• 64-65, 71, 76, 83, 87, 98, 143, 175, 190, 207
• Gluck’s Armida, Iphigenia in Aulide, Paris and Helen, 49;
• Alceste, 23, 49;
• Orfeo, 49, 177;
• Iphigenia in Tauride, 49, 65
• Goetz, 80
• Goetz’s The Taming of the Shrew, 80
• Goldmark, 137
• Goldmark’s Cricket on the Hearth, The Queen of Sheba, 137
• Goring Thomas’s Esmeralda, Nadeshda, 97
• Gounod, 88, 141
• Gounod’s Mireille, Romeo and Juliet, The Mock Doctor, 88;
• Philémon and Baucis, 88, 196;
• Faust, 88, 95, 141, 170
• Grand Opera, definition of, 70;
• in England, 156-162
• —— French, 43, 63, 176
• Graun, 77, 207
• Grétry, 51, 82
• Grieg, 129
• Grisi, 208
• Halèvy, 85, 207
• Handel, 11, 43, 44-47, 64, 76, 154, 190, 191, 195, 202, 203, 207
• Handel’s Deidamia, 45;
• Rinaldo, 45, 202
• Harris, Sir Augustus, 157
• Hasse, 43, 77, 207
• Haydn, 61, 207 [Pg 267]
• Hérold, 85, 175, 207
• Hérold’s Zampa, 85
• Hiller, 77, 78
• Hiller’s Der Dorfbarbier, Die Jagel, 77
• Humperdinck, 137
• Humperdinck’s Die Heirat wider Willen, 139;
• Hansel and Gretel, 137, 138, 141
• Innovations, musical, 20
• Isouard, 85, 206
• Italian Opera, 15, 39-42
• Italian School, the, 63-75
• Jenny Lind, 203
• Jomelli, 64, 207
• Jomelli’s Armida, 209
• Keiser, 43, 76
• Kelly, 94
• Kreutzer, 79
• Lablache, 204, 208
• Lago, Señor, 157
• Lalo, 90
• Lalo’s Le Roi d’Ys, 90
• Legrenzi, 41
• Leipzig, 179
• Leit-motif, the, 27, 28, 105, 107, 116, 135
• Leoi, Franco, 148
• Leoncavallo, 130, 133
• Leoncavallo’s I Pagliacci, 133, 195;
• Roland of Berlin, 133
• Librettists, 206
• Lindpaintner, 78, 79
• Liszt, 102, 103
• Lock, 187
• Logroscino, 12, 64
• Lortzing, 78, 79
• Lortzing’s Peter the Shipwright, 79
• Lotti, 42
• Ludvig II., King of Bavaria, 102, 103
• Lully, 11, 42-43, 81, 98, 175, 176, 188, 199
• MacCunn, Hamish, 147
• MacCunn’s Diarmid, 148;
• Jeanie Deans, 148, 159
• Macfarren, 96
• Mackenzie, 145, 147
• Mackenzie’s The Cricket on the Hearth, The Troubadour, 147
• Malibran, 204
• Manners, Charles, 160, 161
• Marschner, 14, 60, 78, 79
• Marschner’s Der Vampyr, Hans Heiling,
• The Templar and the Jewess, 79
• Mascagni, 130, 131-132
• Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana, 132, 170, 206;
• L’Amico Fritz, I Rantzau, Iris,
• William Ratcliff, 133
• Masque, the, 187
• Massé, Victor, 90
• Massé’s Paul et Virginie, 90
• Massenet, 141, 142
• Massenet’s Esclarmonde, Hérodiade, Le Cid,
• La Jongleur de Notre Dame, La Navarraise,
• Le Roi de Lahore, Manon, Thaïs,
• Werther, 142
• McLean, Alick, 148
• Méhul, 83
• Méhul’s Joseph, Uthal, 83
• Melody, Adoption of, 10
• Melos, 16, 26, 30, 116;
• Modern, 117
• Mendelssohn, 59, 60, 61
• Mendelssohn’s Lorelei, The Wedding of Camacho, 60
• Mercadante, 72 [Pg 268]
• Merimée, 210
• Messager André, 144
• Metastasio, 207
• Meyerbeer, 60, 85-87, 98, 101, 169, 173, 175, 176, 194, 207
• Meyerbeer’s Dinorah, L’Africaine, Le Huguenots,
• Le Prophète, 87
• Michael’s Utal, 195
• Mixed language singing, 190
• Monodic style, 38
• Monsigny, 82
• Monteverde, 9, 19, 20, 31, 39, 48, 71
• Moody, Madame Fanny, 160
• Moody-Manners Company, 158, 160
• “Moresca” from Monteverde’s Orfeo, 39-40
• Moussorgsky’s Judith, 125
• Mozart, 13, 14, 24, 27, 44, 51-55, 61, 62, 63,
•   65, 66, 70, 76, 77, 78, 168, 205, 207
• Mozart’s Die Entfurhrung aus dem Serail, Idomeneo, 54;
• Don Juan, 54, 205;
• Magic Flute, 54, 195;
• The Marriage of Figaro, 54, 177;
• Cosi fan Tutte, 177;
• Zauberflöte, 177, 196;
• Don Giovanni, 124, 170, 178, 195
• Munich, 179
• Musical comedy, 186
• Musical empiricism, 12
• Music, Emotional effect of, 34;
• an accessory, 5;
• polyphonic, 33
• Muzio Scevola, 190
• Napoleon I., 199, 200
• Naumann, 84
• Naylor, Dr. Edward, 161
• Neapolitan school, the, 64
• Nepravnik, 127
• Nessler, 140
• Nessler’s The Trumpeter of Sákkingen, 140
• Nicolai, 78, 79
• Nicolai’s Merry Wives of Windsor, 79
• Offenbach, 89
• Offenbach’s Orphée aux enfers, 89;
• Les Contes d’Hoffmann, 90
• Opera and politics, 199
• “Opera Buffa,” 12, 64
• “Opera Comique,” 15, 82, 83, 185
• Opera House, Attempts to provide London with, 158;
• Covent Garden, 172;
• “La Scala,” Milan, 173;
• “San Carlo,” Naples, 173;
• “Académie Nationale de Musique,” Paris, 175;
• Vienna, 177;
• Hungarian, Budapest, 178;
• National Theatre, Prague, 178;
• Berlin, 178;
• Dresden, 179;
• Court Theatre, Munich, 179;
• Bayreuth, 180
• Opera houses, the chief, 172-184
• “Opera in Musica,” 1, 5
• “Opero Seria,” 12
• Operetta, 185
• Opera, What is it? 1;
• derivation of term, 1;
• an artificial product, 2-3;
• hybrid, 4;
• defined, 5;
• growth of, 8;
• reformers of, 18;
• beginnings of, 42;
• logical commencement of, 37;
• early Italian, 39-42;
• early French, 42-43;
• early German, 43-44;
• early English, 44-47;
• small influence of great composers on, 61;
• Italian school of, 63-75;
• German school, 76-80;
• French school, 81-90;
• English, of eighteenth and part of nineteenth centuries, 91-97;
• chief modern composers of, 120;
• subsidized, 150; [Pg 269]
• an educative
• quantity, 151;
• objections to subsidized, 151;
• English, 152;
• Covent Garden, 154;
• how to listen to and enjoy it, 163-171;
• in Russia, 183;
• in other European countries, 183;
• in Egypt and America, 184
• Orchestra, use of, 10;
• definite shaping of, 14
• Pacini, 72, 202
• Paderewski, 127
• Paisiello, 64
• Paladihle, 144
• Palazzo Bardi enthusiasts, 19, 33, 34
• Paris, 175
• Parry, Sir H., 145
• “Pasticcio,” 190
• Patti, Madame, 204
• Pepusch, Dr., 92
• Pergolesi, 12, 64
• Pergolesi’s La Serva Padrona, 64
• Peri, 34, 37, 39
• Peri’s Daphne, 34;
•  Euridice, 34, 35, 36, 42
• Philidor, 82
• Philip V. of Spain, 203
• Piccini, 51, 64-65
• Polish opera, 127
• Ponchielli’s La Gioconda, 173
• Porpora, 207
• Prague, 178
• Prima Donna, the, 207-208
• Prime donne, 15, 72, 207
• Puccini, 130, 135
• Puccini’s La Bohème, La Tosca, Manon Lescaut, 135;
• Madama Butterfly, 135, 157
• Purcell, 11, 44, 91
• Purcell’s Dido and Æneas, King Arthur, 44
• Rameau, 81-82, 175
• Recitative, 69-71
• Recitativo Stromentato, 71
• Richter (Wagnerian conductor), 157
• Ricordi, Messrs., 161
• Rimsky-Korsakoff, 124, 125
• Rimsky-Korsakoff’s Pskowitjanka, The May Night, 125
• Romantic opera, 24, 56
• Rome, 174
• “Rose Softly Blooming” (song), 79
• Rossi, 42
• Rossini, 15, 25, 66-69' 71, 80, 173, 202, 206
• Rossini’s La Cenerentola, William Tell, 71;
• La Gazza Ladra, 71, 173;
• Otello, 69, 71;
• Tancredi, 66, 174;
• Semiramide, Mosè in Egitto, Zelmira, 174;
• The Barber of Seville, 66, 174, 202, 211
• “Rossinian Crescendo,” example of, 67-69
• Rousseau, Jean Jaques, 82
• Rousseau’s Le Devin du Village, 82, 209
• Royal Opera Syndicate, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 161
• Royalties, 206
• Rubini, 208
• Rubinstein, 123
• Sacchini, 51, 64
• Saint-Saëns, 141-142
• Saint-Saëns’ Ascanio, Henry VIII., L’Ancètre,
• Les Barbares, Proserpine, and Phryne, 142
• Scarlatti, Alessandro, 10, 12, 21, 27, 41, 43, 70, 118
• Schillings, Max, 140 [Pg 270]
• Schubert, 13, 59, 60, 61
• Schubert’s Alfonso and Estella, Fierabras, 60
• Schumann, 59, 60, 61
• Schumann’s Genoveva, 60
• Scribe, 207
• Senesino, 202
• Serov, 124
• Shield, 94
• Sinding, 129
• Singers, Abuses by, 15;
• stories of, 207-208
• Singspiel, 4, 5, 70, 77, 83, 97, 185
• Slavonic opera, 122-128
• Smetana, 127, 178
• Smetana’s Dalibor, Der Kuss, Libusa, 128;
• Bartered Bride, 128, 178
• Smith, Miss Emily, 148
• Smith’s (Miss Emily) Der Wald, The Wreckers, 148
• Somerville, 148
• Spinelli, 134
• Spinelli’s A Basso Porto, 134
• Spohr, 14, 24, 78
• Spohr’s Faust, 78;
• Der Alchymist, Der Berggeist, Jessonda, 79
• Spontini, 14, 60, 63, 66, 84, 98, 169, 175,
• 176, 194, 196, 200, 205, 210
• Spontini’s Fernand Cortez, Olympia, 85;
• La Petite Maison, 210;
• La Vestale, 85, 200, 210
• Stage pieces, Progress in mounting of, 7
• Stanford, 145, 146, 153
• Stanford’s Canterbury Pilgrims, Savonarola,
• Shamus O’Brien, The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan, 146;
• Much Ado about Nothing, 147
• Stereotyped casts, 191
• Storace, 94
• Strauss, 139, 179
• Strauss’s Feursnot, Guntram, 139;
• Elektra, Salome, 139, 179
• Sullivan, 97, 119, 158, 189
• Sullivan’s The Mikado, 97;
• Ivanhoe, 97, 158
• Sussmäyr, 70
• Tamburini, 208
• Tchaïkovsky, 124, 126, 189, 195
• Tchaïkovsky’s Eugene Oniegin, Joan of Arc,
• Mazeppa, The Enchantress,
• The Oprichnik, 126
• Thomas, Ambroise, 90, 119, 141
• Thomas, Goring, 96
• Titov, 123
• Tomaschek, 127
• Tonality, 9
• Venice, 174
• Verdi, 72-75, 80, 98, 119, 173, 207
• Verdi’s Ernani, Rigoletto, Il Trovatore,
• La Traviata, 72;
• Un Ballo in Maschera, Aïda, 73;
• Otello, Falstaff, 74;
• I Lombardi, 173 [Pg 271]
• Vienna, 177
• Vivaldi, 41
• Volkov, 123
• Wagner, 15, 26, 73, 79, 85, 89, 98-115, 143,
• 157, 176, 179, 180, 189, 192;
• Influence of, 116-120;
• use of orchestra, 118;
• his harmony, 118;
• supernatural requirements, 194
• Wagner’s The Fairies, 100;
• Das Liebesverbot, 100, 101;
• Rienzi, 101, 105;
• Flying Dutchman, 79, 102, 105, 159;
• Parsifal, 104, 113-115;
• Tannhäuser, 102, 106-107, 189, 209;
• Lohengrin, 102, 107-108, 159, 170, 200, 209;
• The Ring, 102, 103, 112-113, 157, 170, 202;
• Die Meistersinger, 102, 110-112, 157, 170, 202;
• Tristan and Isolde, 189, 170
• Wagner, Siegfried, 140
• Wallace, 96
• Wallace’s Maritana, 96, 187
• Weber, 13, 14, 24, 44, 56-59, 61, 66, 77,
• 78, 84, 89, 99, 157, 168, 179, 205
• Weber’s Der Freischütz, 56, 70, 78, 84, 178, 185, 205;
• fragment from, 57-59;
• Oberon, 59, 157;
• Euryanthe, 59, 195
• Weingartner, 140

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