ned local colour was still fresh in spite of "L'Africaine,"
and that the vulgar would find delight in a blaze of glaring banners
and showy spectacle. So he set the two first acts as they stood,
trusting to local colour and spectacle to make them popular; and, as
we know, at the time they were popular, and the populace exalted Verdi
far above such second-rate fellows as Mozart and Beethoven. But now,
when local colour has been done to death, and when it has had a
quarter of a century to bleach out of Verdi's canvases, what remains
to interest, I do not say to touch, one? Certainly not the expression
of Radames' or Aida's love, for here as everywhere Verdi fails to
communicate any new phase of emotion, but (precisely as he did in
"Falstaff" and "Otello") has written music which indicates that he had
some inkling of the emotion of the scene, and could write strains
calculated not to prevent the scene making its effect. That Verdi has
no well-spring of original feeling, perhaps explains why he is so poor
in the scenes with Radames, Amneris, and Aida. (Also, perhaps, it
explains why he has fallen back in his best period upon masterpieces
of dramatic art for his librettos. It is almost outside human
possibility to add anything to "Falstaff" or "Otello"; and such
success as Verdi has made with them is the result of writing what is,
after all, only glorified incidental music--music which accompanies
the play. To class these accompaniments with the masterpieces of
original opera is surely the most startling feat of modern musical
criticism.) Moreover, the plan of writing each scene in a series of
detached numbers--for, even where song might flow naturally into song,
the two are quite detached--breaks up the interest as effectually as
it does in "Traviata"; and the songs do not themselves interest.
Verdi's music is not based, like the masters', upon the inflexions of
the human voice under stress of sincere feeling, but upon figures and
passages easily executed upon certain instruments. The great composers
strove to make instruments speak in the accent of the human voice,
while Verdi has always tried to make the voice sound like an
instrument. His roulades and cadenzas, for example, sound prettier on
the clarinet than on the voice, as one hears when he sets the one
chasing the other in "Traviata"; and if only our orchestral players
would take the trouble to play with the same expression as the stage
artists sing, we might soon be c