Page:Rolland - A musical tour through the land of the past.djvu/205

Rh of ancient music. She had her seven or eight famous theatres, among others the Argentina and the Aliberti for opera seria and the Capranica for opera buffa.

Above all, Rome, thanks to the attraction which her fame, her traditions and her eternal charm have always possessed for cultivated minds, had a public of rare musical competence, a truly sovereign public, which was aware of its own value, perhaps too much so, and pronounced its judgments without appeal,

The performances of new operas in Rome were terrible ordeals for the composers; verdicts were promulgated which claimed to be final, and the judges brought to these verdicts the passion of the Italian temperament. The fight was on from the very beginning of the evening. If the music was condemned the hearers were capable of distinguishing between the composer and the singers; they hissed the maestro and applauded the artists. Or it was the singer who was hissed, while the composer was carried in triumph on to the stage.

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