Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/111

Rh HISTORY.] MUSIC 99 (1721) and L Enrolement d Arlequin (1726), which were comical enough in plot to sanction the definition, procured hearing for his larger and graver dramatic efforts. Most conspicuous of those who later have gained fame as com posers of operas comiques are Monsigny, Dalayrac, Gretry, Mehul, Boieldieu, the profound Cherubim, Halevy, Auber, Ambroise Thomas, and Gounod, many of whom also pro duced masterly pieces in the other class of opera. The singspiel is the German parallel to the opera comique, and its examples comprise some of the greatest works that adorn the lyric stage. Among these are the Entfuhrung aus dem Serail and the Zauberflote of Mozart, the Fidelia of Beethoven, which stands above comparison with all dramatic music save only the Figaro and the Don Gio vanni of Mozart, and suffers not in being placed side by side with these prodigies of genius and mastery, the Faust and the Zemira und Azor of Spohr, the Freischiitz of C. M. von Weber, and Heimkehr aits der Fremde of Mendelssohn. It was a novelty of Weber to break from set forms in his dramatic monologues and frame from the promptings of the situation a special plan for each, which has frequent variations of tempo but always coherence of key, and which never fails to manifest a conceived and fulfilled design and this successful innovation, as much as their musical merit, gives historical importance to his works for the stage. Spohr, with Jessonda (1823), was the first to appropriate continuous music with full orchestra to the German stage, and he wrote in the journals to defend his innovation, which had been preceded in Italy by Rossini with Otello, wherein the &quot; recitative parlante &quot; was for the first time in that country discarded. Spoken dramas profusely interspersed with music and called operas have had vogue in England since the time of Purcell, whose genius was cramped by the literary conceit that music was unfit for expression of human feelings on the stage. The principle was superseded, but the form resulting from it was preserved in the ballad operas, which from 1727 for more than a century were the sole vehicles for music in our theatres ; but these had the speciality that for the most part their music consists of the popularities of the day and rarely includes original composition. Dr Arne, Stephen Storace, Shield, Dibdin, and Sir H. R. Bishop wrote all the music for pieces of this class, and the last appropriated, or modified, or restored to its pristine form the glee in his dramatic works, and by specimens of this he is and will be chiefly remembered. In 1834 a new impulse was given to English opera by the warm welcome of John Barnett s Mountain Sylph, which, though it has speaking, is far more essentially musical in structure than its predecessors, and it has been followed by many a work of merit by the same hand, by Balfe, E. J. Loder, Wallace, and others, several of these being wholly lyrical, according to the requirements of French grand opera. Modern Side by side with the activity in other countries just Italian reviewed was the progress of opera in Italy. Important P era&amp;gt; contributors to this were Giovanni Paesiello (1741-1815) and Domenico Cimarosa (1749-1801), who both wrote extensively, succeeded greatly, and impressed the art with their specialities. Of vastly greater consequence in the future was Mozart, who produced many Italian operas, and, of all musicians that have ever composed for the theatre, brought dramatic music the most nearly to perfection in fitness to the scene, delineation of character, and technical design. The name of Rossini (1792-1868) is conspicuous in the history of opera from the once universal fashion to admire his writings, from the new manner of vocal flourishes he introduced, which strongly tended to revive the inconsistencies against which Gluck had striven, from the ardent imitators who at the time of his triumphs emu lated his peculiarities, from his entire change of style in his later productions, and from his all but ceasing to pro duce during nearly forty years. The languishing Bellini (1802-1835) and the spirited and far more prolific Doni zetti (1796-1848) proved their artistic strength by avoid ing the Rossini idiom, but neither can be accredited with asserting a style. Giuseppe Verdi has proved melodic creativeness equal to either of theirs, with a stronger power of characterization and a better regard for the exi gencies of the scene. A new species of composition has sprung into being Opera within these thirty years, which in France is defined as bouffe. opera bouffe, and in England as comic opera, but is totally distinct from the opera buffa of Italy or the opera comique of France, while less unlike the intermezzo of Italian use in the 18th century. It may be described as burlesque, sometimes of stories that have held mankind s respect for ages, sometimes of modern social absurdities, but having the ridiculous for its main quality, and extra vagant in every essential. It consists of an intermixture of lightest and most frivolous music with spoken dialogue, and depends as much on its literary sprightliness as on its musical tunefulness, for success. It may be said to have been originated by Offenbach (1819-1882) of Cologne, who settled in Paris when young, where in 1855 he engaged a theatre for the production of his lyrical caricatures, initiated them with Les Deux Aveugles, and wrote in all sixty-nine pieces. He has several imitators in the country of his adoption, and is represented in England by Sir Arthur Sullivan. Operatic history may be epitomized in a few sentences. Sum- The Greek tragedy was essentially lyrical, and it portrayed maI 7 f the characters and the incidents with which all who wit- P eratlu nessed were intimate. It fell asleep with the other forms of classic art, to be awakened at the end of the 16th cen tury ; but those who aimed at restoring it to the active world chose subjects from the antique which stirred the wonder more than the sympathy of their audiences. Re gard for the gods and heroes of ancient myths, or for the figures of mediaeval chivalry, who were little less outside general familiarity, long gave an artificial air to theatrical writing. It was the comic branch of opera that first broke from the trammels of the pedagogue, and in repre senting people of its own time applied the grandest attri bute of music the expression of passions common to us all under circumstances experienced by us all in phrase ology familiar to us all. In the piedes for the Countess and the Count in Figaro Mozart rose to earnestness, and in those for Donna Anna, Ottavio, and the Commandant in Don Giovanni still higher to the grandest tragedy, and always on the lips of persons in a period so near to our own that we recognize our own feelings in their utterances. The preternatural is also shown to be within the range of this art in the music of the Statue in Don Giovanni, which may confidently be compared for effect with the ghost scenes in Hamlet, in answer to those who raise quarrelsome questions as to the relative power of music and speech to embody analogous situations. All musicians since Mozart have chosen subjects, however serious, from modern history or from still later modern life, and the preternatural has exercised the imagination of Spohr, Weber, Marschner, and Barnett, to whom Mendelssohn must be added on account of the fragments of Loreley. During the last thirty years Richard Wagner (1813-1883) Wagner, has striven to revolutionize the lyrical drama by his polem ical writing, by his compositions for the theatre, of which he is the twofold author of words and notes, and by his extraordinary means of bringing these conspicuously before the public. His principles were all gathered from antece dent reformers ; their application was his own. His Avorks of art are, by himself and his supporters, professed to be