riangular conflict
between critic, composer, and singer, which up to date, it must be
admitted, has been won by the academic pundits, for, although the
singer has struggled, she has generally bent under the blows of the
critical knout, thereby holding the lyric drama more or less in the
state it was in a hundred years ago (every critic and almost every
composer will tell you that any modern opera can be sung according to
the laws of _bel canto_ and enough singers exist, unfortunately, to
justify this assertion) save that the music is not so well sung,
according to the old standards, as it was then. No singer has had
quite the courage to entirely defy tradition, to refuse to study with
a teacher, to embody her own natural ideas in the performance of
music, to found a new school ... but there have been many rebells.

The operas of Mozart, Bellini, Donizetti, and Rossini, as a whole, do
not demand great histrionic exertion from their interpreters and for a
time singers trained in the old Handelian tradition met every
requirement of these composers and their audiences. If more action was
demanded than in Handel's day the newer music, in compensation, was
easier to sing. But even early in the Nineteenth Century we observe
that those artists who strove to be actors as well as singers lost
something in vocal facility (really they were pushing on to the new
technique). I need only speak of Ronconi and Mme. Pasta. The lady was
admittedly the greatest lyric artist of her day although it is
recorded that her slips from true intonation were frequent. When she
could no longer command a steady tone the _beaux restes_ of her art
and her authoritative style caused Pauline Viardot, who was hearing
her then for the first time, to burst into tears. Ronconi's voice,
according to Chorley, barely exceeded an octave; it was weak and
habitually out of tune. This baritone was not gifted with vocal
agility and he was monotonous in his use of ornament. Nevertheless
this same Chorley admits that Ronconi afforded him more pleasure in
the theatre than almost any other singer he ever heard! If this critic
did not rise to the occasion here and point the way to the future in
another place he had a faint glimmering of the coming revolution:
"There might, there _should_ be yet, a new _Medea_ as an opera.
Nothing can be grander, more antique, more Greek, than Cherubini's
setting of the 'grand fiendish part' (to quote the words of Mrs.
Siddons on Lady Mac