eks, though she did stride through the opera
like a combination of the _grande dame_ and Ary Scheffer's spirituelle
pictures; but such as it is, Madame Gerster achieved a success of
interest only, and that because of her strivings for originality.
Sembrich and Gerster, when they were first heard in New York, had as
much execution as Melba or Nilsson; but their voices had less
emotional power than that of the latter, and less beauty than that of
the former--beauty of the kind that might be called classic, since it
is in no way dependent on feeling.

[Sidenote: _Melba and Eames._]

[Sidenote: _Calve._]

[Sidenote: _Dramatic singers._]

[Sidenote: _Jean de Reszke._]

[Sidenote: _Edouard de Reszke and Plancon._]

Patti, Lucca, Nilsson, and Gerster sang in the operas in which Melba
and Eames sing to-day, and though the standard of judgment has been
changed in the last twenty-five years by the growth of German ideals,
I can find no growth of potency in the performances of the
representative women of Italian and French opera, except in the case
of Madame Calve. For the development of dramatic ideals we must look
to the singers of German affiliations or antecedents, Mesdames
Materna, Lehmann, Sucher, and Nordica. As for the men of yesterday and
to-day, no lover, I am sure, of the real lyric drama would give the
declamatory warmth and gracefulness of pose and action which mark the
performances of M. Jean de Reszke for a hundred of the high notes of
Mario (for one of which, we are told, he was wont to reserve his
powers all evening), were they never so lovely. Neither does the
fine, resonant, equable voice of Edouard de Reszke or the finished
style of Plancon leave us with curious longings touching the voices
and manners of Lablache and Formes. Other times, other manners, in
music as in everything else. The great singers of to-day are those who
appeal to the taste of to-day, and that taste differs, as the clothes
which we wear differ, from the style in vogue in the days of our
ancestors.

[Sidenote: _Wagner's operas._]

[Sidenote: _Wagner's lyric dramas._]

[Sidenote: _His theories._]

[Sidenote: _The mission of music._]

[Sidenote: _Distinctions abolished._]

[Sidenote: _The typical phrases._]

[Sidenote: _Characteristics of some motives._]

A great deal of confusion has crept into the public mind concerning
Wagner and his works by the failure to differentiate between his
earlier and later creations. No injus