other fine plays have accustomed us to.

To dispose of the artistic merits of the opera as briefly as possible,
it may be said that in more ways than one Giordano has in this work
harked back to "Andrea Chenier," the first of his operas which had a
hearing in America. The parallel extends to some of the political
elements of the book as well as its musical investiture with its echoes
of the popular airs of the period of the French Revolution. The style
of writing is also there, though applied, possibly, with more mature
and refined skill. I cannot say with as much ingenuousness and
freshness of invention, however. Its spirit in the first act, and
largely in the second, is that of the opera bouffe, but there are many
pages of "Madame Sans-Gene" which I would gladly exchange for any one
of the melodies of Lecocq, let us say in "La Fille de Mme. Angot." Like
all good French music which uses and imitates them, it is full of crisp
rhythms largely developed from the old dances which, originally
innocent, were degraded to base uses by the sans-culottes; and so there
is an abundance of life and energy in the score though little of the
distinction, elegance, and grace that have always been characteristic
of French music, whether high-born or low. The best melody in the
modern Italian vein flows in the second act when the genuine affection
and fidelity of Caterina find expression and where a light touch is
combined with considerable warmth of feeling and a delightful
daintiness of orchestral color. Much of this is out of harmony with the
fundamental character of Sardou's woman, but music cannot deny its
nature. Only a Moussorgsky could make a drunken monk talk truthfully in
music.

If Giordano's opera failed to make a profound impression on the New
York public, it was not because that public had not had opportunity to
learn the quality of his music. His "Andrea Chenier" had been produced
at the Academy of Music as long before as November 13, 1896. With it
the redoubtable Colonel Mapleson went down to his destruction in
America. It was one of the many strange incidents in the career of Mr.
Oscar Hammerstein as I have related them in my book entitled "Chapters
of Opera" [Footnote: New York, Henry Holt & Co.] that it should have
been brought back by him twelve years later for a single performance at
the Manhattan Opera House. In the season of 1916-1917 it was
incorporated in the repertory of the Boston-National Opera Company and
c