t Monte
Carlo. Although by no means upon the same level as 'Hulda,' 'Ghiselle'
also contains much fine music, and will doubtless be heard of again.

Leo Delibes (1836-1891) made no pretensions to the dignity and solidity
of Cesar Franck's style. He shone principally in ballet-music, but
'Lakme' (1883), his best-known opera, is a work of much charm and
tenderness. It tells the story of a Hindoo damsel who loves an English
officer. Her father, a priest, discovering the state of her affections,
tries to assassinate the Englishman, but Lakme saves his life, and
conveys him to a place of concealment in the jungle. There she find that
his heart is set upon a beautiful English 'miss,' and, in despair,
poisons herself with the flowers of the Datura. Delibes's music never
rises to passion, but it is unfailingly tender and graceful, and is
scored with consummate dexterity. He has a pretty feeling too for local
colour, and the scene in Lakme's garden is full of a dreamy sensuous
charm. 'Le Roi l'a dit' (1873) is a dainty little work upon an old
French subject, as graceful and fragile as a piece of Sevres porcelain.
'Kassya,' which the composer left unfinished, was orchestrated by
Massenet, and produced in 1893. In this work Delibes attempted a tragic
story to which his delicate talent was ill suited, and the opera
achieved little success. Delibes is a typically French musician. Slight
as his works often are, the exquisite skill of the workmanship saves
them from triviality. He made no pretensions to advanced views, and
though he occasionally trifles with guiding themes, the interest of his
works rests almost entirely upon his dainty vein of melody and the
finish of his orchestration.

With Delibes may be classed Ferdinand Poise (1828-1892), a composer who
made a speciality of operas founded upon the comedies of Moliere and his
contemporaries, and Ernest Guiraud (18371892), whose 'Piccolino' (1876)
is one of the daintiest of modern comic operas. His 'Fredegonde,'
produced in Paris in 1895, proved emphatically that his talent did not
lie in the direction of grand opera. Edouard Lalo (1823-1892), a
composer of no little charm and resource, owes his fame chiefly to 'Le
Roi d'Ys,' which was successfully produced at the Opera Comique in 1888,
and was played in London in 1901. It is a gloomy story, founded upon a
Breton legend. Margared and Rozenn, the two daughters of the King of Ys,
both love the warrior Mylio, but Mylio's heart is gi