real value to posterity. For if we are
ever to have a national English opera, we shall get it by writing
English music, not by producing elaborate exercises in the manner of
Wagner, Verdi, Massenet, Strauss, or anybody else. Most great artistic
enterprises spring from humble sources, and our young lions need not be
ashamed of producing a mere comic opera or two before attacking a
full-fledged music-drama. Did not Wagner himself recommend a budding
bard to start his musical career with a Singspiel? It is safest as a
rule to begin building operations from the foundation, and a better
foundation for a school of English opera than Sullivan's series of comic
operas could hardly be desired.

In his younger days Sullivan had many disciples. Alfred Cellier, the
composer of the world-famous 'Dorothy,' was the best of them. Edward
Solomon was hardly more than a clever imitator. The mantle of Sullivan
seems now to have fallen on Mr. Edward German, who besides completing
Sullivan's unfinished 'Emerald Isle,' won brilliant success with his
enchanting 'Merrie England.' His 'Princess of Kensington' was saddled
with a dull libretto, but the music was hardly inferior to that of its
predecessor, and much the same may be said of his latest work 'Tom
Jones.'

The recent performances of English composers in the field of grand opera
have not been very encouraging. Few indeed are the opportunities offered
to our native musicians of winning distinction on the lyric stage, and
of late we have been regaled with the curious spectacle of English
composers setting French or German libretti in the hope of finding in
foreign theatres the hearing that is denied them in their own. Miss
Ethel Smyth is the most prominent and successful of the composers whose
reputation has been made abroad. Her 'Fantasio' has not been given in
England, but 'Der Wald,' an opera in one act, after having been produced
in Germany was given at Covent Garden in 1902 with conspicuous success.
The libretto, which is the work of the composer herself, is concise and
dramatic. Heinrich the forester loves Roeschen, the woodman's daughter,
but on the eve of their marriage he has the misfortune to attract the
notice of Iolanthe, the mistress of his liege lord the Landgrave Rudolf.
He rejects her advances, and in revenge she has him stabbed by her
followers. This is the bare outline of the story, but the value of the
work lies in the highly poetical and imaginative framework in which