t of Porpora, are really
instrumental passages ... and possessing but little interest beyond
the surprise that their exact performance would create." People did
not ask themselves whether it was worth while for singers to go
through the most arduous training for five years, for the sake of
learning to execute runs which any fiddler or flute-player could learn
to play in a few weeks. Look at the fioriture which, to this day, Mme.
Patti sings in "Lucia," "Semiramide," etc. She is the only living
being who can sing them with absolute correctness and smoothness. Not
another singer can do it--whereas _every member of her orchestra can
play them at sight_. Does not this show, once and for all, that this
style of singing (which still has numerous admirers) is instrumental,
is unvocal, unsuited to the human voice, and should be abandoned
forever? Rossini showed his real opinion of it by writing his best and
most mature work in a different style; and Verdi has done the same in
"Aida" and "Otello," in which there is hardly a trace of colorature,
while the style often approaches to that of genuine dramatic song.

The colorature or florid style, however, is only one of the varieties
of Italian song. Side by side with it there has always been a
charming, melodious _cantabile_, which in the later period of Italian
opera gradually got the ascendancy. This _cantabile_ is often of
exquisite beauty, and gives Italian and Italianized singers a chance
to show off the mellow qualities of their voices to the best
advantage. The very word _cantabile_ emphasizes, by antithesis, the
unvocal character of the old florid style. _Fioritura_ means
embroidery, while _cantabile_ means "song-like." But now, note how the
sins of one period are visited on the next. The evils of the florid
style did not terminate with its supremacy. They cast a shadow before,
which prevented the real nature of human song from being discovered
even after the vocal style had become more simple and rational. During
the period in which the vocalists were in the habit of singing from a
dozen to a hundred or more notes to a single syllable of the text,
they, as well as the public, had become so indifferent to the words
and their poetic meaning, that this habit could not at once be altered
when the _cantabile_ style came more into vogue. The singers continued
to be careless in regard to pronunciation of the words, and the opera
libretti were so very silly that the public really