Page:The Spirit of French Music.djvu/140

 natural aspirations of the human soul. Grand opera has its foundation not in nature, but in Meyerbeer's nature. It was born with Meyerbeer and died with him. Its decease is not universally admitted, and many people still imagine that what corresponds in music to the natural and eternal distinction of comedy and tragedy, whatever names one may give them, is the distinction between comic opera and grand opera. But that is an error. Grand opera is in no way musical tragedy; I allow that it more resembles tragedy than comedy, though it commonly contains a large comic element—an involuntary element, it is true. More than anything else it resembles itself. Let us try to define it.

Among its characteristics the most striking is not the least disastrous, namely the literary baseness of the libretto. Providence had not created Meyerbeer for Scribe, since the latter's work would still be considerable apart from his collaboration with the author of The Huguenots. But Providence had created Scribe for Meyerbeer. The association of these two introduced into the musical theatre the toleration of those books which are absolute artistic outrages both in matter and in form. The idea, still very widespread, that the book of an opera is not really adapted to its function and does not conform to its destiny unless it contains absurdities, is only a statement of the way they are made, set up as a rule for their manufacture.

In old days it was an almost universal custom of operatic composers to borrow their subjects from the masterpieces of ancient and modern literature. It was an immense gain to music to take as its material fables and figures already handled, interpreted and illustrated by the great poets. Musical drama, (I