A duel followed between the
baritone and tenor, and the latter, mortally wounded, fell into the
arms of his friends uttering broken, vehement notes. The chorus--made
up of the city watch and town's people--crowded in upon the back of the
stage. The soprano and her confidante returned. The basso, a
black-bearded, bull necked man, sombre, mysterious, parted the chorus
to right and left, and advanced to the footlights. The contralto,
dressed as a boy, appeared. The soprano took stage, and abruptly the
closing scene of the act developed.

The violins raged and wailed in unison, all the bows moving together
like parts of a well-regulated machine. The kettle-drums, marking the
cadences, rolled at exact intervals. The director beat time furiously,
as though dragging up the notes and chords with the end of his baton,
while the horns and cornets blared, the bass viols growled, and the
flageolets and piccolos lost themselves in an amazing complication of
liquid gurgles and modulated roulades.

On the stage every one was singing. The soprano in the centre,
vocalised in her highest register, bringing out the notes with vigorous
twists of her entire body, and tossing them off into the air with sharp
flirts of her head. On the right, the basso, scowling, could be heard
in the intervals of the music repeating

"Il perfido, l'ingrato"

while to the left of the soprano, the baritone intoned
indistinguishable, sonorous phrases, striking his breast and pointing
to the fallen tenor with his sword. At the extreme left of the stage
the contralto, in tights and plush doublet, turned to the audience,
extending her hands, or flinging back her arms. She raised her eyebrows
with each high note, and sunk her chin into her ruff when her voice
descended. At certain intervals her notes blended with those of the
soprano's while she sang:

"Addio, felicita del ciel!"

The tenor, raised upon one hand, his shoulders supported by his
friends, sustained the theme which the soprano led with the words:

"Je me meurs
Ah malheur
Ah je souffre
Mon ame s'envole."

The chorus formed a semi-circle just behind him. The women on one side,
the men on the other. They left much to be desired; apparently scraped
hastily together from heaven knew what sources, after the manner of a
management suddenly become economical. The women were fat, elderly, and
painfully homely; the men lean, osseous, and distressed, in misfitting
hose. But