Page:Rolland - A musical tour through the land of the past.djvu/220

208 This illustrious representative of Italian opera in German was, it is true, beginning to be discussed. About 1760 another party, and a very zealous one, was formed in Vienna in opposition to Metastasio and Hasse. But who were its leaders? Raniero da Calsabigi of Leghorn—yet another Italian!—the librettist of Orfeo and Alceste; and Gluck—no less Italianate than Hasse, a pupil of Sammartini's in Milan, the author of two score dramatic works in the Italian style, who professed all his life, to write Italian operas. —Such were the opposing