ne thing, at any rate, may safely be said: he has
altered the whole course of modern opera. It is inconceivable that a
work should now be written without traces more or less important of the
musical system founded and developed by Richard Wagner.

CHAPTER XI

MODERN FRANCE

GOUNOD--THOMAS--BIZET--SAINT
SAENS--REYER--MASSENET--BRUNEAU--CHARPENTIER--DEBUSSY

If one were set upon paradox, it would not be far from the truth to say
that up to the middle of the nineteenth century the most famous French
composers had been either German or Italian. Certainly if Lulli, Gluck,
Rossini and Meyerbeer--to name only a few of the distinguished aliens
who settled in Paris--had never existed, French opera of the present day
would be a very different thing from what it actually is. Yet in spite
of the strangely diverse personalities of the men who had most influence
in shaping its destiny, modern French opera is an entity remarkable for
completeness and homogeneity, fully alive to tendencies the most
advanced, yet firmly founded upon the solid traditions of the past.

Gounod (1818-1893) was trained in the school of Meyerbeer, but his own
sympathies drew him rather towards the serene perfection of Mozart. The
pure influence of that mighty master, combined with the strange mingling
of sensuousness and mysticism which was the distinguishing trait of his
own character, produced a musical personality of high intrinsic
interest, and historically of great importance to the development of
music. If not the actual founder of modern French opera, Gounod is at
least the source of its most pronounced characteristics.

His first opera, 'Sapho' (1851), a graceful version of the immortal
story of the Lesbian poetess's love and death, has never been really
popular, but it is interesting as containing the germs of much that
afterwards became characteristic in Gounod's style. In the final scene
of Sappho's suicide, the young composer surpassed himself, and struck a
note of sensuous melancholy which was new to French opera. 'La Nonne
Sanglante' (1854), his next work, was a failure; but in 'Le Medecin
malgre lui' (1858), an operatic version of Moliere's comedy, he scored a
success. This is a charming little work, instinct with a delicate
flavour of antiquity, but lacking in comic power. It has often been
played in England as 'The Mock Doctor.' Sganarelle is a drunken
woodcutter, who is in the habit of beating his wife Martine. She is on
the l