ore is saturated with Neapolitan folk-song. I say Neapolitan rather
than Italian, because the mixed population of Naples has introduced the
elements which it would be rash to define as always Italian, or even
Latin. While doing this the composer surrendered himself unreservedly
and frankly to other influences. That is one of the things which make
him admirable in the estimation of latter-day critics. In "Le Donne
Curiose" he is most lovingly frank in his companionship with Mozart. In
"II Segreto" there is a combination of all the styles that prevailed
from Mozart to Donizetti. In "I Giojelli" no attempt seems to have been
made by him to avoid comparison with the composer who has made the most
successful attempt at giving musical expression to a drama which fifty
years ago the most farsighted of critics would have set down as too
rapid of movement to admit of adequate musical expression? Mascagni and
his "Cavalleria rusticana," of course. But I am tempted to say that the
most marvellous faculty of Wolf-Ferrari is to do all these things
without sacrifice of his individuality. He has gone further. In "La
Vita Nuova" there is again an entirely different man. Nothing in his
operas seems half so daring as everything in this cantata. How he could
produce a feeling of mediaevalism in the setting of Dante's sonnets and
yet make use of the most modern means of harmonization and
orchestration is still a mystery to this reviewer. Yet, having done it
long ago, he takes up the modern style of Italian melody and blends it
with the old church song, so that while you are made to think one
moment of Mascagni, you are set back a couple of centuries by the
cadences and harmonies of the hymns which find their way into the
merrymakings of the festa. But everything appeals to the ear? nothing
offends it, and for that, whatever our philosophical notions, we ought
to be grateful to the melodiousness, the euphony, and the rich
orchestration of the new opera. [The performances of "I Giojelli della
Madonna" by the Chicago-Philadelphia Opera Company, as it was called in
Chicago, the Philadelphia-Chicago Opera Company, as it was called in
Philadelphia, were conducted by Cleofonte Campanini and the principal
parts were in the hands of Carolina White, Louisa Barat, Amadeo Bassi,
and Mario Sammarco.]

End of Project Gutenberg's A Second Book of Operas, by Henry Edward Krehbiel

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SECOND BOOK OF OP