enth century.

XVII

OPERA

No art form is so fleeting and so subject to the dictates of
fashion as opera. It has always been the plaything of fashion,
and suffers from its changes. To-day the stilted figures of
Hasse, Pergolesi, Rameau, and even Gluck, seem as grotesque
to us as the wigs and buckles of their contemporaries. To
Palestrina's masses and madrigals, Rameau's and Couperin's
clavecin pieces, and all of Bach, we can still listen without
this sense of incongruity. On the other hand, operas of
Alessandro Scarlatti, Matheson, and Porpora would bore us
unmitigatedly. They have gone out of fashion. Even the modern
successors of these men, Bellini, Donizetti, and Verdi, in his
earlier years, have become dead letters musically, although only
as late as 1845, Donizetti was at the very zenith of his fame.

Of all the operas of the past century, our present public has
not seen or even heard of one, with the exception of "The Magic
Flute," and less probably "Don Juan." This is bad enough;
but if we look at works belonging to the first part of the
nineteenth century, we find the same state of affairs. The
operas of Spontini, Rossini, most of Meyerbeer's, even Weber's
"Freischuetz," have passed away, seemingly never to return. Even
"Cavalleria Rusticana," of recent creation, is falling rapidly
into oblivion. Thus the opera comique early disappeared in
favour of the romantic opera and the operetta. The former has
already nearly ended its career, and the latter has descended
to the level of mere farce. In the course of time, these opera
forms become more and more evanescent; for the one-act opera of
miniature tragedy, which is practically only a few years old,
is already almost extinct.

And yet this art form has vastly more hold on the public than
other music destined to outlive it. The fact is, that music
which is tied down to the conventionalities and moods of its
time and place can never appeal but to the particular time and
mood which gave it birth. (Incidentally, I may say the same of
music having its roots in the other peculiarities of folk song.)

Now the writers of these operas were great men who put their
best into their work; the cause of the failure of these operas
was not on account of the music, but the ideas and thoughts
with which this music was saddled. What were the books which
people read and loved in those days (1750-1800), that is,
books upon which operas might be built? In England we