aradossi of
being implicated in Angelotti's escape, and uses La Tosca's jealous
suspicions to help him in securing the prisoner. In the next act
Angelotti is still at large, but Cavaradossi has been arrested. Scarpia,
who has meanwhile conceived a violent passion for La Tosca, extracts
from her the secret of Angelotti's hiding-place by putting her lover to
the torture in an adjoining room, whence his cries penetrate to her
distracted ears. La Tosca buys her lover's safety by promising herself
to Scarpia. The latter gives orders that Cavaradossi's execution shall
only be a sham one, blank cartridge being substituted for bullets. When
they are left alone, La Tosca murders Scarpia with a carving-knife when
he tries to embrace her. In the last act, after a passionate duet
between the lovers, Cavaradossi is executed--Scarpia having given a
secret order to the effect that the execution shall be genuine after
all--and La Tosca in despair throws herself into the Tiber.

In 'La Tosca' we are in a world very different from that of 'La Boheme.'
Here there is very little scope for grace and tenderness. All is deadly
earnest. The melodramatic incidents of the story crowd one upon another,
and in the rush and excitement of the plot the music often has to take a
secondary place. Whenever the composer has a chance he utilises it with
rare skill. There are passages in 'La Tosca' of great lyrical beauty,
but as a rule the exigencies of the stage give little room for musical
development, and a great deal of the score is more like glorified
incidental music than the almost symphonic fabric to which we are
accustomed in modern opera.

The history of 'Madama Butterfly' (1904), Puccini's latest opera, is a
strange one. At its production in Milan it was hissed off the stage and
withdrawn after a single performance. No one seems to know why it failed
to please the Scala audience, with whom Puccini had previously been a
great favourite. Possibly the unfamiliar Japanese surroundings
displeased the conservative Milanese, or the singers may have been
inadequate. At any rate, when it was revived a few months later at
Brescia, in a slightly revised form, it won more favour, and its London
appearance the following year was a brilliant triumph. Since then it has
gone the round of Europe and America, and is now probably the most
popular opera in the modern repertory. The story of 'Madama Butterfly'
is familiar to English hearers, the opera being founde