rary Revival.

To vary this program, illustrate with scenes from Sheridan's School for
Scandal, and The Rivals, in costume. Have Moore's ballads sung: Oft in
the Stilly Night, Those Evening Bells, The Last Rose of Summer, and The
Harp that Once Through Tara's Halls. Read from Lever's Charles O'Malley
and from Burke's speech on the impeachment of Warren Hastings. Clever
Irish stories and famous bulls might be given to close the hour.

CHAPTER VII

THE OPERA

INTRODUCTORY

It is part of a liberal education to be more or less acquainted with the
lives of our great composers and the operas they wrote; and the subject
is quite as interesting and practical for the women remote from musical
centers as for those near them. There are two books any club can own
which are invaluable; one is called The Opera, by R. A. Streatfield,
which gives a sketch of each composer and an estimate of his work; the
other, Two Hundred Opera Plots, by Gladys Davidson tells the story of
each opera. In addition to these (and of course whatever is to be found
in a good encyclopedia) the score of any opera can be bought at a music
store, and a pianist can illustrate a talk with leading airs; or, if
practicable, one of the modern musical machines can reproduce the voices
of famous singers in their great parts.

I--RISE OF OPERA IN ITALY

The year's work should begin by one or more meetings on the Rise of
Opera in Italy in the latter part of the sixteenth century. Three little
operas were written, attempting to give the old Greek dramas in a
musical setting. The first public performance of opera as we know it,
however, was given by Peri, in Florence, with his Euridice, to honor the
marriage of Maria de' Medici and Henry IV. of France; this was a sort of
recitative, set to the music of a violin, a guitar, and harpsichord.

Peri was followed by Monteverde, but the latter's production of Orfeo
far surpassed the former's work on the same theme. His orchestra had
thirty-nine instruments, and the effect of the whole was to open a new
world of music. At once opera-writing became the fashion, and in fifty
years all great Italian cities had their schools of opera, and France
had adopted the same ideas. The subjects of all were classical,
allegorical, and pastoral, and to the recitative, alone, were added
songs and arias, and the overture was developed. Some clubs might take
for a year's work the subject of Italy of this period, adding the study