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BOOSEY'S UNIVERSAL SINGING METHOD, con

taiuing full directions for the production and cultivation of all kinds of voices, on the real Italian system; numerous Scales and Exercises, by Rossini, Righini, Garcia, Vaccaj, &c., with Solfeggi by Bordogni, and others; also a number of Examples of the Appoggiatura, the Shake, and all other embellishments, followed by remarks on the delivery of the words, phrasing, style, taste, and expression: concluding with the following celebrated songs aud duets, accompanied by directions to assist in their perfect execution:

1. Holy, holy, Lord God Almighty 2. La donna è mobile-"Rigoletto"

3. Oh! memory! thou fond deceiver

4. Do not mingle-"Sonnambula"

5. The Bridesmaids' duet

The whole edited and composed by JOHN WASS

EXTRACT FROM PREFACE.

Händel.
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"The Universal Singing Method aims at fulfilling these purposes: to teach the pupil how to produce and cultivate the voice; and when that is accomplished, how to sing with ease, taste, and effect. For the first purpose, the real Italian system is introduced, which is followed by a selection of the most valuable exercises, solfeggi, &c., by the most famous masters. With the second object in view, several popular songs are given, as examples; with appropriate remarks on the mode of executing them.

"It is believed that the Universal Singing Method will be found to be more useful, and practical, than any other instructor. It has been compiled with great care, and for the express purpose of meeting the requirements of amateurs."- - Boosey and Sons, 28, Holles-street.

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GORDIGIANI.

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Saluti (Canto Popolare) 2s.; Un Uomo felice (Ballata) 2s. ;
La Rosa (Romanza) 2s.
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N ESSAY ON FINGERING, chiefly as connected with Playing, by CHARLES NEATE. Price 15s. To be had of the Author, 2, Chapelstreet, Portland-place; at Messrs. Longmans', Paternoster-row; and of the principal Music-sellers.

YELL. Wbson in Mediebrated Burlesque, and performed
ELLOW DWARF POLKA, on the melody danced

the Olympic Theatre. Composed by J. Barnard. Illustrated with a portrait of Robson in character. Price 2s. 6d. Boosey and Sons, 28, Holles-street.

The fear to encounter the drudgery of wading through a long series of dry exercises has frequently deterred amateurs from commencing the study of music. Nor can it cause much surprise, when we consider that, music being learnt for amusement only, there should be a reluctance to incur a laborious study. The intention of this little work is to place the subject before the amateur in the most simple and pleasing form, and I can conceive no plan more agreeable for adoption at the outset than to afford the pupil the means of gratifying his ear by the performance of beautiful melodies. In pursuing this plan, however, I have taken especial care to render the examples solidly improving; for, although I view an Instruction Book in the light of a school-boy's Horn Book, and believe that the sooner the young flautist can get through it the better, I should consider it a mere waste of time if either the rudiments of music or the elements of playing the instrument correctly were kept out of sight. So far as I profess this work to go, I have most auxiously endeavoured to render it complete, and I feel assured that any ordinary capacity may, by its aid, very speedily fearn to play the flute. J. CLINTON. By the same Author, LA SONNAMBULA, the complete opera for Flute solo, price!2s. 6d. Boosey and Sons, 28, Holles-street.

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VOL. 33.-No. 25.

PARIS.

(From our own Correspondent.)

THE long-expected, oft-announced, incessantly-rehearsed opera, Les Vepres Siciliennes, has at last been produced at the GrandOpéra. Its production was attended with considerable successa success attributable to four causes, which I place in order of merit: 1st, The admirable manner in which the music was interpreted by Mdlle. Sophie Cruvelli and most of the other artists; 2nd, the mise-en-scène, which left nothing to be desired; 3rd, the inherent interest of the subject of the libretto; 4th, the music which Sig. Verdi has composed to illustrate that subject. Beginning at the fourth clause, Sig. Verdi, in my opinion, has written no work containing more beauties or greater defects; Les Vêpres Siciliennes resembles a mosaic, in which two artists of unequal merit have been employed. A morceau of elegant design and admirable execution is interwoven with another, coarse in conception and deficient in finish; want of harmony consequently pervades the whole, and the very beauties themselves mar the perfect success of the work, by bringing more prominently into notice the deficiencies to which they are allied. At times, the music is graceful, elegant, and sweet, suited to the situation it illustrates, dramatic in character, and admirable both in design and execution. But scarcely has the public expressed its approbation, and the hum of applause barely ceased, ere your ears are dinned with some stunning chorus shouted in unison, some air taxing the capabilities of the most stentorian lungs; or your sense of musical and dramatic propriety is outraged by music altogether alien to the situation, and unsuited to the scene. The second act of the Vêpres Siciliennes is probably the best which Signor Verdi has yet composed. It is full of beauties, and contains little to criticise. When the curtain fell at its conclusion there was a general shout through the house for the composer, who was led on to the stage by Madlle. Cruvelli; where he received the ovation which he had justly merited. O! si sic omnes! In the very next act occurs the most important and dramatic situation of the opera. An entry of conspirators, an attempt to assassinate the governor, a separation between two lovers, and a father's preservation by his son, have supplied Signor Verdi with no better inspiration than a worn-out polka worthy of M. Alary, and ludicrously discordant with dramatic exigencies and propriety. Although Signor Verdi has achieved success, he has made no advance in his art, but, on the contrary, has produced a work which, as a whole, is unquestionably inferior to Rigoletto and Il Trovatore. I will now proceed from generalities to details, and, as M. Scribe has, in a note at the head of his "livret" declared that "the general massacre known under the name of the 'Sicilian Vespers' never took place"-an assertion leading one to suppose that M. Scribe places historical truth on a level with that of his own fictions-I will give a short account of the Sicilian Vespers which form the subject of the present opera.

It was in the year of grace 1282 that these events occurred, which constitute one of the most tragical episodes in the world's history. Charles of Anjou had delivered the island of Sicily into the keeping of governors, whose cruelty and rapacity were inhuman even in those dark ages. The people were ground down by taxes and imposts, barbarously beaten, deprived of their wives and daughters by the lust of a brutal soldiery, and confined in dungeons such as still exist in the island, for the im

PRICE 4d. STAMPED 5d.

murement of those who have offended King Bomba. The nobles were humiliated and disgraced, their daughters deprived of their wealth and confined in convents, when they refused to marry some chosen one among the governor's needy adventurers, while the executioner found constant employment in branding, maiming, torturing, and murdering those who proved refractory, or revolted against the tyranny to which they were subjected. The entire population groaned under the yoke imposed on them, and thirsted for vengeance. On the afternoon of Easter Tuesday, the 31st of March, 1282, the people repaired to vespers at the church of the Saint Esprit, about a mile from Palermo, to celebrate the third day of Easter. The church was filled to overflowing, and those who were excluded from its walls formed themselves into groups on the adjacent grass or in the neighbouring gardens. "Mirth and youthful jollity" everywhere prevailed, and dancing and singing were the order of the day. A few of the French soldiers constituting the garrison joined the various groups, and ere long took their accustomed liberties with the fair dancers, whose lips they pressed and whose waists they encircled in that free and easy manner so natural to the Gauls, but so likely to lead to "explanations" when the owner of the pressed lips or encircled waist revolts against such familiarity. Accordingly, a murmur passed through the group of Palermitan bystanders, whereon the soldiers added jeering to insult. Stones were thrown, and, on the troops defending themselves, knives, daggers, and hatchets were soon brought into play. A scene of terrible carnage then commenced, with shouts of "Death to the French." The butchery, once begun, was continued for the space of a whole month, and during that period a number of Frenchmen were put to death, by some historians estimated at 20,000, by none at less than 10,000. John of Procida was among the most active leaders in this revolt, and his name and exploits, forming the theme of many a poem and romance, have now been celebrated by MM. Scribe and Verdi in the opera of Les Vêpres Siciliennes.

The curtain rises on a scene representing the great square of Palermo, with French officers and soldiers drinking and singing in chorus. Presently the Duchess Hélène (Mdlle. Sophie Cruvelli), sister of the late Duke Frederick of Austria, crosses the stage with her attendants, returning from church. The duchess is detained as a hostage at Palermo, and laments her brother murdered by the Governor. The soldiers demand a song to enliven them, and Hélène-like Marcel in the Huguenots-at once complies with their request. She accordingly sings a cavatina replete with life, energy, and movement, stirring the blood in the veins of her Sicilian hearers, who with loud shouts repeat the refrain, and draw their daggers to attack the French. There is but one opinion as to the manner in which Mdlle. Cruvelli delivered this air, and all critics, whether friendly, hostile, or neuter, have united to sound her praises. Just as the fray is about to commence, Guy de Montfort, Governor of Sicily (M. Bonnehée), appears, and his dreaded presence at once calms the excitement.

No man dares speak save one, and that man is Henri (M. Gueymard), a youg Sicilian, the natural son of the Governor by a native of the island, whom he has seduced and abandoned some twenty years before. This youth is unacquainted with the secret of his birth or the name of his father, and has joined John of Procida (M. Obin) in his conspiracy against the French domination. He is beloved by Hélène, who is in equal ignorance of

his paternity. He braves the Governor, who dismisses Hélène and all the bystanders. "Serve in the French camp," says the Governor, who dearly loves his unacknowledged son ; it is your only chance of safety." "I will not." "You refuse; then death must be your fate." "I care not." "Meanwhile, nevermore see Hélène." "I fly to her," says Henri, and the curtain falls on the first act.

The second opens with a charming scene, in a smiling valley near Palermo, with the chapel of Sainte-Rosalie on an eminence in the distance. John of Procida is alone, moody and thoughtful. He expresses his sensations in an air, "O mon pays, tant adoré," which is interrupted by a chorus of bass voices behind the scenes. They shout, "Death to the French, new life to their country," and, as the voices die away, Procida resumes his interrupted song, which concludes with a stretta, quick, rapid, and admirably in keeping with the situation. M. Obin sang this air to perfection, and fairly divided the applause with the composer. Hélène arrives, recognises Procida, and they unite their voices in hope for the deliverance of their native soil. Procida departs to add fuel to the flame commencing to burn among the people, and Henri is left alone with Hélène. He discloses his love in a charming duet, exquisitely sung by Madlle. Cruvelli, and to which M. Gueymard also did full justice. A passage on the words "Moi! qui simple soldat," which forms an accompaniment to, and embroidery on the theme sustained by Madlle. Cruvelli, called down thunders of applause, and the whole duet is graceful, elegant, and charming. But alas! the course of true love never did run smooth; an officer arrives, who forms an unwished for addition to the lovers' tête-à-tête, and who bears an invitation for Henri to the Governor's fête. He refuses with disdain, and is carried off captive. He bears with him the antidote of love to the bane of imprisonment, for Hélène has promised her hand, if he will avenge on the French the death of her murdered brother.

Procida returns, preceding the conspirators and friends, who have united to celebrate the fête of Sainte Rosalie. Sicilian dancers, tarentellas, &c., follow in rapid succession.

The French soldiers ere long espy the happy groups, and, throwing themselves into the midst, carry off the girls most suited to their taste; an outrage they commit in broad daylight, and in presence of their assembled relatives. Stupor, indignation, rage, and fury succeed each other in rapid order; the people give way to their passions in a chorus well suited to the scene, and when the voices of all, gradually increasing in volume, have arrived at the very climax of indignation, the chorus is interrupted by an ensemble of the principal singers on the words "Ils frémissent enfin, et de honte et de rage," which produced an admirable effect, and was much applauded. In the midst of these tumultuous cries, comes an air wafted over the waters, "in sounds by distance made more sweet." The enraged populace listens to the song, and presently beholds a boat freighted with gallant Frenchmen and noble dames, who, escorted by bands of music, are proceeding to the Governor's fête. At the sight of their foes the passions of the mob are roused to violence, and, whilst from the boat proceeds a strain of sensuous music, voluptuous and love-inspiring, the stage re-echoes to the rude and impassioned chorus of the angry conspirators. This double chorus is united by the composer with rare skill, and the effect was tremendous. The curtain fell to shouts of applause from all parts of the house, and Signor Verdi-after long resistance to a call which would admit of no denial-was at length led before the curtain by Madlle. Cruvelli, to receive the applause which the beauties of the second act had fairly won for him.

Act third commences in the cabinet of Guy de Montfort, at Palermo. He is informed that Henri, having refused his invitation, has been brought as a prisoner; and the prisoner is led before him. In a duet of considerable merit, the Governor informs Henri that he is his father, and a phrase in the words

"Pour moi, quelle ivresse, inconnue,

De contempler ses traits chéris!"

which was well delivered by Bonnehée, was much applauded. Henri trembles at seeing before him his enemy, his father, and

the seducer of his mother united. He rushes from the stage and flies to seek Procida and Hélène, his lover and his friend.

The scene now changes to the palace of Palermo, where the ballet of Les Quatre Saisons is represented before the assembled court. Hélène, Henri, and Procida arrive masked; Hélène determined to carry out her scheme of slaying the Governor ; Henri, who has not yet informed Hélène of the secret of his birth, resolved to save his father. She raises her arm to strike, but, at the moment the blow is about to fall, she finds her lover's breast between her dagger and the hated tyrant. Henri thence becomes an object of detestation and scorn to the conspirators, whose plans he has frustrated, and to Hélène, whose vengeance he has baulked. She repulses him, declaring that he has lost her love for ever. Henri rushes from group to group, protesting and vowing, but his words are thrown to the winds, for the conspirators, in a chorus written in unison, and sung at the very top of their voices, refuse his explanations, disbelieve his vows, and the curtain falls on Act 3; the finale to which forms a most striking contrast to that which preceded it, being an ill-arranged combination of sounds emitted from many voices and many instruments-noise, et preterea nihil. Act 3 indeed is a failure. The trio of conspirators; the son trembling for his father's life, and divided between love and duty; the fair Sicilian bent on avenging her brother's death; and the stern patriot resolved on his country's liberation, can find no better means of expressing their feelings than the air de ballet, to which the dancers are pirouetting on their arrival. Were it not that Signor Verdi had on previous occasions treated us to similar eccentricities, it would be incredible that the second act, so impassioned, dramatic, and replete with beauties, could have proceeded from the same composer as this common-place, trite, vapid, and trashy third

act.

In the fourth act, Montfort has arrested Hélène and Procida, and Henri comes to visit them in prison. He declaims an air intended to be grand, but utterly wanting in idea or inspiration. Hélène issues from the depth of the dungeon, and loads with reproaches the traitor who should have avenged her brother, but who has saved his murderer. Then follows a duet, wherein Henri confides to her the secret of his birth, and Hélène forgives him. This duet," Ami, le cœur d'Hélène pardonne au répentir," is a charming composition, and sung sotto voce by Mdlle. Cruvelli and M. Gueymard—it was encored with enthusiasm. The tyrant descends into the dungeon, and orders the immediate execution of the conspirators, who take leave of the world in an ensemble Adieu, mon pays, je succombe." A "De profundis," chaunted in a neighbouring chapel, comes like the "miserere" of the Trovatore, to throw its gloomy pall over the situation. The condemned await their death with resignation, when Henri demands their pardon of the Governor. Montfort replies that if Henri will publicly acknowledge him as his father, his request will be granted; but this Hélène positively forbids, preferring to suffer death rather than that the hated tyrant should hear the word "Father" proceed from the lips of the son. She therefore marches resolutely to the scaffold; but the moment the axe is about to fall, Henri cries out " Father, father!" the headsman's hand is stayed, and the pardon is granted.

But Montfort is not content with the pardoning only, and exclaims

"Pour réconcilier la Sicile et la France.

D'Hélène et de mon fils j'ordonne l'alliance." The duchess refuses; she will never wed the Governor's son. Procida whispers in her ear, recommending compliance. "Never, never!" replies she. "Silence! it is a ruse," says Procida, and she gives a feigned consent. The whole of this scene is weak in conception, and puerile in execution, whether as regards the libretto or the music. The one is worthy of the other, and both

are childish in the extreme.

The fifth act developes the idea that had suggested itself to the Procidian mind, and proves him to be wanting in invention, and commonplace in idea. There is no wedding without bells, thought he, and a bell shall be the signal for the massacre of the hated French. The chapel is prepared, and a chorus of young girls heralds the bride's approach. She arrives, and thanks them in a bolero, "Merci, mes jeunes amies," which, owing to

the charming execution of Mdlle. Cruvelli, was enthusiastically encored. Henri arrives, accompanied by Procida, who then details his plan to Hélène. At the moment the bells announce that Hélène has wedded Henri, the massacre will commence, which is to strike without mercy every Frenchman in Sicily. She refuses to countenance the scheme, and rather than be a party to it, renounces the hand of the man she loves. Her reasoning seems to be-no marriage, no bells; no bells, no vespers; no vespers, no massacre. Henri approaches to lead her to the altar, and is surprised, as well as he may be, by her informing him that

"Tu veux me ravir mon amour 33

and the bass adjures, for, says he,

"Tu veux me ravir ma vengeance"

Hélène is divided between love for her betrothed and devotion to her country; she stands irresolute and perplexed, when Procida gives the fatal signal; the bells toll, a group of men, sword in hand, throw themselves on Montfort and his friends, and the curtain falls as the massacre begins.

In this act the music is altogether foreign to the purpose, and utterly unsuited to the scene. Hélène sings a bolero, a polonaise profusely adorned with ornament and fioriture; she seems to have forgotten her murdered brother, her bleeding country, her feigned marriage, and her unslaked vengeance. Henri too has ceased to remember his mother seduced, his country enslaved, and busies himself with festival and gaiety alone. Who would think, when listening to the sound of these mandolines and castagnettes, that a nation is about to assert its nationality, and to take the most fell revenge on its oppressors and its foes? But thus has it pleased M. Scribe and Signor Verdi, and the epithets I have bestowed on the fourth act are equally, or even in a stronger degree, applicable to the fifth.

Of the execution, I can speak in terms of unqualified praise. Though the opera was not concluded until one o'clock in the morning, the artistes never tired in their zealous efforts to do their utmost for the composer and his music. Mdlle. Cruvelli was indefatigable; Signor Verdi owes much to her untiring exertions, and to the wonderful display of genius, talent, and art which she combined in her representation of the Duchess Hélène. She sang and acted with passion, soul, and energy, and roused the audience to unwonted enthusiasm. Three times was she encored, and over and over again re-called before the curtain. She gave her first cavatina with great fire and vigour, murmured the romance à demi-voix with exquisite simplicity and grace, and vocalised the Bolero in the most brilliant style. Her carriage and deportment as she walked to the scaffold were noble and resigned; the accents of her voice in the scenes with her lover touching and tender beyond description. Her triumph was complete.

OPERA AND DRAMA.

PART L

OPERA AND THE CONSTITUTION OF MUSIC.

BY RICHARD WAGNER.

(Continued from page 375.)

CHAPTER IV.

EVERY artistic tendency approaches more nearly perfection in exactly the same degree that it gains the power of more solid, clearer and surer form. The people, who, in the beginning, utter their astonishment at the wide-working wonders of nature, in exclamations of lyrical feeling, poetically raise, in order to master the object that thus excites their astonishment, the wide-branching natural phenomenon into a god, and, then, the god into a hero. In this hero, as their own image, they recognise themselves, and celebrate his deeds in epic poetry, while they actually represent them in the drama. Stepping from out the chorus, the tragic hero of the Greeks looked back and said to it: "See, thus does a man really act; what you celebrate in opinions and maxims, I place before you as indisputably true and necessary." Greek tragedy comprehended, in the chorus and the hero, the public and the work of art; the latter was directly presented in tragedy, with the opinion on itself as the poetical view of the matter-to the people, and the drama ripened as a work of art exactly in the same proportion that the explanatory judgment of the chorus was so irrefutably expressed in the actions of the heroes themselves, that the chorus would step completely off the stage among the people themselves, and assist as vivifying and realizing participators of the action-as such. Shakespere's tragedy most undoubtedly stands so far above that of the Greeks, inasmuch as it has completely overcome the necessity of the chorus to the artistic technical details. In Shakespere, the chorus is merged in individuals participating in the action, and behaving as entirely in obedience to the same individual necessity of opinion and position as the principal hero himself, while even their apparent subordination within the artistic outline is only evident from their further points of contact with the principal hero, but not at all from any fundamental technical contempt for the secondary personages; for, in every case, the most subordinate character has to take part in the principal action, and expresses himself completely in accordance with his own characteristic, free mode of thinking.

That Shakespere's decided and well defined characters have in the subsequent course of modern dramatic art continued to lose more and more of their plastic individuality, and sunk to mere fixed dramatic masks without any individuality at all, is to be attributed to the influence of a State system arranging everything according to a settled order of rank, and oppressing more and more the right of free individuality with fatal violence. The phantasmagoria of such character-masks as theseinwardly hollow, and destitute of all individuality-was the dramatic basis of opera. The more unsubstantial the personages behind these masks, the better adapted were they considered for singing the operatic air. "Prince and Princess"such is the whole dramatic axis round which opera turned, and element of individuality could only be bestowed upon such operatic masks by outward touches, and, finally, it became necessary for the peculiar locality of the scene of action to supply the place of that which they had once for all inwardly lost. When composers had completely exhausted the profrom the people, they ended by clutching at the entire locality itself: scenery, dresses, and that which had to fill them out, the accessories capable of movement-the operatic chorus became, at last, the principal thing-the opera itself, which was compelled to cast, from all sides, its flickering light upon "Prince and Princess" in order to preserve the unfortunate beings in their painted vocal existence.

The ballet of the Quatre Saisons is pretty, but too long. A young débutante, Mdlle. Conqui, made a sensation and achieved a success as Spring. She is an Italian, tall, well-made, graceful, and pretty. She danced with vigour and lightness, and though she has much to learn, she is very young, and gives promise of being a valuable addition to the list of danseuses.

Thus was the revolution of the drama fulfilled to its deadly disgrace; the individual characters to which the chorus of the people once raised itself by the aid of poetry, were hurried away into a stream of checquered, mass-like accessories, without a centre. We regard as such accessories the whole prodigious scenic apparatus, which cries to us, through machinery, painted linen and motley attire, as the voice of the chorus: "I am myself, and there is no opera without me!"

It is true that noble-minded artists had previously availed themselves of the national element as an ornament; but with them it could only exercise a sweet and charming spell in those cases where it was added as appropriate and requisite for a dramatic subject animated by characteristic action, and where it was introduced without any ostentation. How admirably could Mozart give a national colouring to his "Osmin," and his "Figaro," without seeking for it in Turkey or Spain, or even in books. But "Osmin" and "Figaro" were actual, individual characters, happily conceived by the poet; endowed by the musician with true expression, and not to be missed by any performer of sound feeling. The national additions of our modern operatic composers, however, are not employed upon such individualities, but intended to impart, in the first place, to something of itself completely without distinctive character a foundation in some way characteristic, for the purpose of animating and justifying an existence naturally indifferent and colourless. The point to which all sound popular element tends, the purely human characterising principle, is, in our operas, altogether wasted, as a colourless insignificant mask for singers of airs, and this mask is only to be artificially animated by the reflection of the surrounding colour, for which reason the colour of the accessories is daubed on in the most glaring and conspi

cuous manner.

In order to animate the desolate stage around the singers of airs, the people, after having been robbed of their melody, were, at last, brought on the stage itself; of course, however, it could not be that people which discovered the melody in question, but the docile, well-schooled mass, that marched up and down to the time of the operatic air. That people was not required, but the mass, that is to say, the material remains of the people, whose living spirit had been sucked dry. The mass-like chorus of our modern opera is nothing more than the scenery and machinery of the theatre endowed with the power of walking and singing the dumb splendour of the coulisses changed into moving noise. The "Prince and Princess," with the best will in the world, had not anything else to say for themselves than their flourishing airs which had been heard a thousand times; at last, an attempt was made to vary the theme by causing the whole theatre, from the coulisses to the chorus, that had been increased a hundred fold, to sing the said air with them, and that, too-the greater the effect to be produced-no longer in several parts, but in really tumultuous consonance. In the "Unison," at present become so celebrated, the true pith of the reason for the employment of masses is most evidently manifested, and, in the operatic sense, we hear most assuredly the masses emancipated," when, in the most celebrated passages of the most celebrated operas, we hear them execute the old worn-out air in hundredvoiced unisonance. Thus it is, too, that our present system of State has emancipated the masses, when it makes them, in military uniform, march in batallions, wheel to the left and to the right, and shoulder and present arms; when Meyerbeer's Huguenots rise to the greatest height, we hear in it what we see in a batallion of the Prussian Guard. German writers call thisas we have already said—the emancipation of the masses.

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But the accessories thus "emancipated" were, strictly speaking, only another mask. If really characteristic life did not exist in the principal personages of the opera, it was still less possible to infuse it into the mass-like apparatus. The reflection, which should have fallen from this apparatus with animating effect upon the principal personages, could only produce a result at all satisfactory, when the mask of the accessories received, somehow or other, from without, such a varnish as would deceive us with regard to their inward hollowness.

This varnish was obtained from historical costume, which necessarily rendered the national colouring more striking. We might suppose that here, on the introduction of the historical motive, it would have fallen to the lot of the poet to take a decisive part in the fashioning of the opera. We shall soon perceive, however, our error, when we reflect what course the progress of opera had previously taken; how it necessarily owed all the phases of its development to the desperate efforts of the musician to keep his work artificially alive, and was even directed to the employment of historical motives, not from a desire, which it experienced as a necessity, of giving itself up to the poet, but by the pressure of purely musical circumstancesa pressure, moreover, arising from the completely unnatural attempt of the musician to supply both the end and the expression in the drama. We shall subsequently return to the position of the poet relatively to our modern opera; at present, we will uninterruptedly proceed from the point of view of the actual factor of the opera, namely, the musician, to where his erroneous efforts necessarily conducted him. The musician, who-however he might choose to demean himself-could only furnish expression, and nothing but expression, necessarily lost the capability of healthy and true expression in exactly the same proportion that he degraded the object of his expression to a fundamentally flat and unsubstantial scheme, in his erroneous zeal to draw and to invent the said object himself. As he had not applied to the poet for a human being, but to the mechanician for a lay figure, which he draped as he pleased with his robes, in order to enchant by the charm of colour and the arrangement of the robes alone, he was obliged, in the impossibility of representing the warm pulsation of the human being in the lay figure, and as his means of expression became more and more meagre, to direct his attention to the most unheard-of and greatest diversity in the colours and folds of his robes. The historical robe of opera-the most productive of all, since it was capable of being changed, in the most motley manner, according to time and climate-is, however, properly speaking, only the work of the scene-painter and the stage tailor, and, in truth, these two persons have become the most important allies of the modern operatic composer. But still the musician did not fail to arrange his tune-palette for historical costume; how was it possible that he, the creator of opera, after making the poet his servant, should not outrival the painter and the tailor? When he had resolved the whole drama, with its action and characters, into music, how could it be impossible for him musically to swamp also the drawings and colours of the painter and tailor? He was able to tear down all the dams, and open all the sluices, dividing the sea from the land, and thus, in the deluge of his music, to drown the drama, with man and beast, with paint-brush and scissors.

But the musician was obliged, also, to fulfil his predestined task, and to delight by the presence of the historical style of music the German school of criticism, for whose benefit, as is well known, the Almighty, in his kind and superintending care, created art. This high mission soon inspired him to discover the right thing.

What was it necessary that an "historical style" of music should be, in order to produce the effect of such? At any rate, something different to a style that was not historical. In what, however, did the difference consist? Plainly in the fact that the "historical" style is as different from that usual at the present day, as the costume of some former epoch to that of our own times. Was it not the wisest plan, just as the costume is faithfully copied from the age selected, to borrow the music also from that age? Unfortunately, this was not such an easy task, for, in the times so piquant as regards costume, there was, barbarously enough, no opera. A general operatic language could, therefore, not be borrowed from them. On the other hand, however, the people of those days used to sing in churches, and these church compositions possess, when unexpectedly sung at the present day, something strikingly strange in comparison to our music. Excellent! Let us have church songs! Religion must mount the stage! Thus, the necessity for musical historic costume became a Christian, religious, operatic virtue. For the crime of robbery committed on the people's melody, Roman