g who she is, when he discovers the truth,
bursts in upon a fete she is giving, quarrels with a lieutenant and
kills him on the spot. He is condemned to exile in Siberia, but is
followed by Stephana, who overtakes him at the frontier, and gets leave
to share his fate. In the mines they find Globy, Stephana's original
seducer, whose infamy she exposes to the assembled convicts. In revenge
Globy betrays to the authorities a project of escape devised by Stephana
and Vassili, and the lovers are shot just as liberty appears to be
within their grasp. The music of 'Siberia' is more artistic than
anything Giordano has previously written. The situations are skilfully
handled, and the note of pity and pathos is touched with no uncertain
hand. The opera is unequal, but the scene of the halt at the frontier is
treated in masterly fashion.

Francesco Cilea won no marked success until the production of his
'Adriana Lecouvreur' in 1902. The plot is an adaptation of Scribe's
famous play, but so trenchantly abbreviated as to be almost
incomprehensible. The opening scene in the _foyer_ of the Comedie
Francaise is bright and lively, the handling of the score arousing
pleasant reminiscences of Verdi's 'Falstaff,' but the more dramatic
passages in the struggle of Adrienne and her rival the Princess de
Bouillon for Maurice de Saxe seem to be outside the scope of the
composer's talent, and the great moments of the piece are somewhat
frigid and unimpressive. There is a note of pathos, however, in
Adrienne's death-scene, and the character of Michonnet is elaborated
with skill and feeling. Cilea's latest opera, 'Gloria' (1907), a
blood-thirsty story of the struggle between the Guelphs and Ghibellines,
does not appear to have won much favour in Italy.

Edoardo Mascheroni's early laurels were won as a conductor, but in 1901
he sprang into fame as the composer of 'Lorenza,' an opera which has met
with much success in various cities of Spain and Spanish America as well
as in Italy. 'Lorenza' is a Calabrian version of the time-honoured story
of Judith and Holofernes, though in this case the Judith, so far from
slaying her brigand Holofernes, falls in love with him, and ends by
disguising herself in his cloak and allowing herself to be shot by the
soldiers who come to capture the bandit chief. Mascheroni's score
overflows with thoroughly Italian melody, and shows considerable
knowledge of dramatic effect, which from a conductor of his experience
was