les assigned to mezzo-soprano contraltos, such
as Orphee, or Fides (_Le Prophete_), which she created, but also the
parts given to dramatic sopranos. Mme. Viardot was thus able, with
some slight modifications, to sing Norma, Desdemona (_Otello_:
Rossini), Rachel (_La Juive_), etc.

The role of Rosina has now definitely passed into the possession of
florid or _coloratura_ sopranos; much, therefore, of the music is of
necessity transposed, the air in question being now sung one half-tone
higher, in the key of _F_.

Here is a change used by Mme. Cinti-Damoreau, who sang the music in
the original key. The composer wrote:

[Music: Si Lindoro mio sara.]

Mme. Cinti-Damoreau sang thus:

[Music: Si Lindoro mio sara.]

In the same bar Mlle. Henrietta Sontag, who sang the air a semitone
higher, introduced the following:

[Music: Si Lindoro mio sara.]

Rossini wrote no cadenza to the air:

[Music: lo vincero!]

Cadenza of Mlle. Sontag:

[Music: Ah! ah! ah! lo vincero!]

I have already spoken of the bad taste exhibited by some mediocre
singers in covering a coloratura air with so many roulades, etc., as
to render it barely recognizable. It was after hearing one of his own
arias overloaded and disfigured in this manner that Rossini, who was
noted for his biting wit and stinging sarcasms, is said to have
remarked: "What charming music! Whom is it by?"

Bellini, Donizetti, and composers of their school, sometimes did
little more than hand over to the singer engaged to create their works
a rough sketch, as it were, which the artists were supposed to fill in
and perfect. Singers were expected to add such _fioriture_, or
"flowers," as would best display their salient points of style and
individual characteristics. The Cavatina, or slow movement of the
aria, was the medium which called for the qualities of expressive
singing, while the Cabaletta was a vehicle for the display of
virtuosity and technical mastery. In this latter movement, the
equivalent of the Rondo in instrumental music, the performer was left
perfectly free to use such embellishments as set forth his own gifts
to the greatest advantage. Some singers excelled in bold and rapid
flights of scales, chromatic and diatonic; others, in the neat and
clean-cut execution of involved _traits_ or figures. It must be
remembered, that the great singers of the past were perfectly
competent to add these ornaments themselves, as they possessed a
complete and sound musica