Had Verdi's career ended with Otello there would have been no difficulty in determining his place—a very forward one—in the world's history, and notably in the world of dramatic music. With the production of Falstaff, however, the wonderful vitality, resource, and inspiration of the giant mind broke out afresh, bewildering everybody concerning the art-possibilities that were still in store behind the more than octogenarian composer. It is the swan-song perhaps of the illustrious master, and a great song it indeed is. To think that such a score should be the easy pleasurable outcome of the brain of a man bordering upon his eightieth year was, at the time, one of the most extraordinary features in connection with the production of Falstaff, and the fact will ever stand amongst remarkable efforts in musical annals. Il Trovatore is a monument of melody, a standing example of what passionate tune can be and is as an element of art; Otello was an extraordinary development in breadth of style and usage, vocal and instrumental; but Falstaff surpassed all. It sums up all that is best in Verdi's musical mind and method, and will ever serve as a standard of Italian national art, nemine dissentiente. It is the most brilliant, the most masterly, of all his operatic productions. Gorgeous in its wealth of invention and consummate skill, it places Verdi on his highest artistic pedestal. Like Aïda and Otello it is pre-eminently a musician's work, and shows the widened style of the composer, which used to be regarded as a Wagner imitation more than either of its predecessors. With all its delightful, unceasing humour the work does not appeal readily to the popular mind, the fact being that to understand and enjoy it the taste must be educated. Like Wagner's operas, Falstaff is a score that taxes the critical sense, and the more musical and highly cultivated the listener is, the more will Verdi's latest music command attention. Nor does this mean that the opera will not live. On the contrary, as musical knowledge becomes more and more spread, Falstaff and Otello, the advanced handiwork of Verdi, will prove to be music of a far more satisfactory nature than that luxuriant passionate sort which abounds in Trovatore, Traviata, and other young Italy operas.

If the music of Falstaff proved a revelation to those who first heard it, it was also a revolution. Nobody had ever credited Verdi with the preponderating quality in this opera; it was Mozart come to life again! The humanity of the man who had ever depicted the morbid, treacherous, worst-passioned natures was suddenly reflected in the light-hearted, innocent frolic of youth, music as light and babbling as a child's speech. All that was so cheerful in Le Nozze di Figaro, the fun of the Barbiere di Siviglia, with much of the Verdi characteristic, shot out in Falstaff in a way that simply electrified the musical world. The tragic, melodramatic Verdi was no more: in his place stood the exalted, the chastened master of art. No other composer had ever made such a change of front, a change that brought him on good terms with the whole musical world. Falstaff was indeed a new apocalypse. Perhaps the most striking feature of the Falstaff music after its jovialness is its consistent character—one of high quality and finely detailed workmanship. It is not a case of sandwiching a good tune, dramatic chorus, or an overwhelming ensemble, between a mass of meagre indifferent writing, but from first to last the music is of a most elevated, high-pitched order—tune, harmony, scholarship, ensemble—these abound; but the whole is so well balanced and dexterously planned, as to make the opera a delightful study for the theatrical musician as well as for the careless listener. As has been well said, "Falstaff is not a mere string of pretty tunes, ensembles, and choruses of every-day pattern, but a colossal work, a mass of intricacy, such as musicians alone can dive into and comprehend whilst uncultivated listeners can yet find enchantment upon the surface. For to the cunning of a Wagner has here been allied the simplicity of a Mozart."

Undoubtedly Falstaff is the most remarkable example of the master's genius, and when we reflect that while it was being evolved there was a gaping world, with ears all open, waiting to learn how much of Wagner would resolve into Verdi, it becomes truly astonishing that its composer has steered so clear of any appreciable influence or model. It is the unaided work of the one master-hand. Assuming that Verdi has anywhere imitated Wagner, then in Falstaff the Italian is certainly further removed from the German than in any other of his operas. There is hardly a recurring theme in the whole opera; and the everchanging, constantly varying tints of emotional expression, the brilliant ensembles, the ingeniously contrived pieces, where three and more rhythms are expressing chattering views and sentiments at one and the same time; beautiful solo pieces, duets, and notably an accompanied quartet—all these, and the highly dramatic and well-judged finales, have no more to do with Wagner, or any other composer save Verdi, than they have with Homer. As a whole, Falstaff is an astounding masterpiece. In form, construction, scholarship, and musicianly result, it is the finest opera Verdi, or any Italian, has written. Its vocal and instrumental play and device are such as were never thought to be in Verdi, and, like its two immediate predecessors, it places Verdi in the first rank of the world's operatic composers. Falstaff must ever be regarded as a wondrous specimen of humorous music, constructed upon perfectly legitimate and classical lines. No nobler work could crown an artist's life-efforts; no other work shows so well the advanced and chastened style of Verdi's Third and matured period. Falstaff, as a creation, has immortalised Verdi. It has done more. Finem respice! It has saved artistic Italy in this fin de siècle age. This last work of Verdi's furnishes the culminating point in the history of Italian opera.

How then can the punishment which Verdi received at the hands of his first English musical critics be explained? How came it that a composer, who had lovingly placed many splendid tributes upon the high altar of his art, was so estimated, by at least one responsible critic, as to merit severe castigation of such a character as this:—

"Signor Verdi is the one prophet of Italian opera, and since this paragraph was penned, the waning of the coarse light of his star is pretty distinctly to be observed. It is hardly possible to imagine his violence outdone by any successors; yet this would seem to be the law of Italian movement in such shows of art as are to be popular."[77]

Thirty and forty years ago, music here was hardly deemed worthy of criticism in newspaper columns, albeit a journal here and there—the Athenæum, for instance—recognised the art. If, however, there were then few musical representatives of the English Press, the disadvantage appears to have been atoned for by the character of the criticisms. Some few of the musical scribes deigned to notice, and were deemed capable of considering, Verdi. These began, from the first, to hunt him à outrance, neither discerning nor expecting any good from the Italian. Never was there a more abused man than Verdi. If "best things are moulded out of faults," then to distinguish "faults" in such a musical renegade was out of the question. The whole was, according to certain critics, hopelessly unregenerate!

"Verdi's career in this country has been curiously chequered. If artistical anathemas could have annihilated his fame, then would he have long since ceased to have been heard of; but he appears to enjoy a cat-like vitality amongst our amateurs. Never was there one of his works produced, either at Her Majesty's Theatre or at the Royal Italian Opera, but he received a terrific castigation from criticisers, and the musical public were assured, after these awful denunciations of indignant journalism at the performance of such 'unmitigated trash,' that the name of Verdi could be no more uttered in this musical metropolis. And yet the thus extinguished composer—on paper—the very next season was sure to be brought forward in the shape of a revival of one of his 'failures,' or in the representation of his latest continental novelty. What then is the key to this anomalous state of things, wherein it is found that Verdi's defenders, amongst writers, are so few, and his partisans still more rare, and still Verdi is not shelved? Is it that amongst opera frequenters there is a fiat in his favour, which is sufficiently strong to maintain his name in the repertory? Or is it that the general body of amateurs feel that the dead-set against the only composer left in Italy is based on prejudice, intolerance, and injustice?

"Whatever may be the solution of these questions, it is, at all events, satisfactory to find that the spirit of justice is sufficiently powerful amongst English audiences not to be carried away by mere clamour; and Rigoletto, the three-act lyric drama, put on the stage for the first time on Saturday, with such magnificent resources, will secure an impartial hearing from those connoisseurs who are not led away by proper names only."[78]

Thus wrote one critic who possessed good sense and courage which enabled him to look calmly on, while the pen-and-ink slaughter raged fast and furious, for several years following Verdi's advent here. Coming from a journalist representing a leading, influential journal, the comment is, at least, suggestive.

As it bears, moreover, upon an interesting aspect of present-day journalism, it may, at this long removed period, well be reviewed, if only in justice to Verdi. That the composer long since vindicated himself there can be no doubt; but this does not do away with a present-day question of how far public criticism should influence those who read it, or to what extent hostile censorship has operated, or may do, to crush the artistic aims and possibilities of those for the encouragement of whom, and not for their annihilation, journalistic comment is supposed primarily to exist. Perspicuity should be the first law of criticism.

The writer of the above quoted remarks had in view, among others, such contemporary journals as the Times and Athenæum, which papers, especially the latter, had been particularly endowed, as it would appear, with the mission of "slating" Verdi, until there could be reached what in pugilistic parlance is known as a "knock out." Not for a moment do we doubt that all that was written and published had in view the possible interests of Art.

It is not difficult for us, living in these closing years of the Nineteenth Century, to assure posterity that the suggestion of an "ephemeral reputation" for Il Trovatore has been sadly belied; and Verdi has demonstrated in the broad light of day that neither Rossini nor Meyerbeer nor Auber accomplished for dramatic lyric art what he has done. "Mission" or no mission, "system" or no system, Il Trovatore has braved the battle of managerial cupidity for nearly half a century; it has replenished theatre coffers, and it still "draws" crowds who enjoy listening to it. What more is wanted? If Music does these things, then, surely some of the first conditions of Art are fulfilled. The most modern of modern music can accomplish little more, unless it be to vex the mind with its abstruseness, and to tax the brain in divining the whereabouts of this or that theme, and the entry and passage of some particular "subject" phrase. This revelling in the region of theory, the perpetual expectation for progressions of fugal enterprise and cleverness, are well enough in their way, and provide admirable occupations for musical "cobwebs"; but is it a congenial employment for the rank and beauty of Society? If attendance at the opera is to involve some trying brain-study for the audience, the boxes and stalls must soon be empty. Music for the stage must ever be of a nature to give enjoyment; when it ceases to be this, and becomes a study—a something that even the πολλοί themselves cannot understand—then its existence is jeopardised.

What means the latter-day revival of Il Trovatore, Rigoletto, and other old familiar operatic acquaintances? Is it a reaction in favour of the old at the cost of the new in art? Let it be borne in mind that the present is, for the most part, a new generation listening to and admiring Verdi's Second period strains. The audiences are not made up entirely of old fogeys in green spectacles and drab sparrow-tails, whose waning physical powers are overcome by emotional memories of the past. Is it true after all that the Trovatore music has long been declining, and is all but dead; that now and then a dramatic soprano, as Madame Titiens was, or a "lungs of brass" tenor, as Signor Tamagno is, can more or less galvanise the corpse into life? We think not. Our opinion is that there is real genius, true sterling worth, in the music of the Trovatore, which of itself—and not from any lack of taste, or culture, or of mental aberration on the part of the "mob" (for whom alone, we have been assured Verdi could cater)—has preserved this opera, and many others, in the hearts and ears of the public at large. Here and there the vocal and instrumental processes may seem, and probably are, uncouth; but that the music as a whole possesses undying properties, a life-current passing on to all who hear it, we have no doubt. Thus, although the dictates of fashion may set aside the Trovatore for a while, there will always be the risk of its bounding out unexpectedly to take hold of the hearts of a new rising generation. If the Trovatore music had not been vital music from the first, it would not be here to-day, inasmuch as the work is one which has never been "written up" by the critics. The process has rather been to mount the tub and affect a superior taste, while poor, deluded, no-cult folk flocked to the opera-house to listen to hackneyed stuff, which we have been assured was not music at all! But the voice of the people—the vox populi—is not to be denied, even though critics wax warm.

Millions find tune in Trovatore; and tune (when of the quality of Verdi's) becomes the first, the unextinguishable principle of music. This is the grand secret of the vitality of Trovatore and operas akin to it, which the intelligent many will continue to enjoy to their heart's content, malgré the pityings of wiseheads. When Trovatore is as extinct as the dodo, and as dead as the door nail, that will be the time to sing its requiem, although there would seem to be little promise of any of this generation being required to attend that solemn function. Pending the setting of the sombre seal, we, for our part, will continue to respect Verdi, and folk in general will not be far wrong if they take to believing that Verdi is as good a judge of music as were any, and all, of his defamatory critics.

Political circumstances had much to do with Verdi's jumping into popularity in Italy. Not so in England. No element of luck attended his débût here, where he stood not upon his merits. From the first he encountered a determined opposition. It has never been quite clear what this opposition wanted, but that it was supported by such a power as the late Mr. Chorley, for forty years the independent musical critic of the Athenæum, is sufficient evidence to prove that it was formidable. What did it mean?

Weber (1786-1826) and Meyerbeer (1791-1864) were of course known here. That romantic character pervading the German national opera had become familiar to English ears through Italianised versions of such supernatural subject operas as Der Freischütz, Euryanthe, and Oberon; whilst opera-goers were growing accustomed to the gorgeous pageantry and dazzling resources of gigantic examples of operatic architecture like Les Huguenots, Le Prophète, and L'Africaine. Can a leopard change its spots? Surely the sapient critics were not expecting a transformed Italian opera model from an Italian at one bound? Verdi had been applauded in Italy for what he had accomplished on the continental lines of his country's opera. He was professing nothing more, and Mr. Lumley, when arranging for the composer's works for the English stage, contracted for naught else. As all the world knows, Verdi has accomplished immeasurably more since, in bringing Italian opera fully up to the level of the Weber, Meyerbeer, or Wagner model. The public is now prepared for Italian operas of the Aïda and Falstaff stamp, but it is doubtful if, fifty years ago, their production would not have brought forth a storm of disapproval. Verdi's earlier operas, Ernani and Il Trovatore, were fully worthy of the average taste of the times; and if it be maintained that they are going out of fashion, precisely the same thing can be said of several of the German and Franco-German operas which certain critics applauded while they abused Verdi, and with which Verdi's works were compared and declared to be inferior.

Whatever prompted the resistance to Verdi (the strong feeling between the management of the rival opera houses may have had something to do with it), it is certain that Verdi encountered a determined and unfair opposition on coming to England. Equally certain is it that Mr. Chorley became a powerful mouthpiece of the opposition. With a freedom permitted to its talented staff that did infinite credit to the management of that leading journal of art and literature, the Athenæum, its pages were long allowed to be disfigured with anti-Verdi criticism such as it is now difficult to understand, unless it had for its object the immediate Germanising of Verdi by sheer force of censorship.

The musical drama is the most artistic manifestation which man can express. A successful grand opera demands all that is highest in music, drama, and a host of other phases of cultured training. This can only, save very exceptionally, be achieved towards the end, not at the beginning, of a lifetime; and the perspicuous critic should be able to foresee the prospects of this in a young composer. Great as Mr. Chorley perhaps was as a musical censor, he did not forebode the successful future of Verdi any more than he encouraged Mendelssohn, his judgments upon whom have been long since overturned.

This chiefly, however, as a footnote to history. Verdi has outlived all opposition, and has risen to a great artistic eminence fully deserved in the case of one who has laboured so ably and so unremittingly in music. Now the critics on all sides fall down and worship him. He is beloved in England not less than in his own land, while all the world will long remember him by his Requiem Mass and latest operas, if not by such familiar lingering strains as "La Donna è Mobile," "Ah si ben mio; coll essere io tuo," "Quando le sere al placido," and scores of others.

De mortuis nil nisi bonum; and, having borne dearly-loved ones to Death's portals, Heaven forbid that we should ever speak ill of those that sleep. But, history must be written; and it is only sheer justice to Verdi to advance his side of the case. That Verdi, ab initio, down to the production of Aïda (when the composer was sixty-three years of age), experienced a long spell of powerful English critical hostility is beyond doubt. Whether Italian opera had so obtained under Bellini, Donizetti, Mercadante, and Rossini that folks, or sections of society, were so surfeited with it as to positively refuse to tolerate more while Weber, Wagner, and Meyerbeer could be had, however promising that more might appear, or whether the great reputation that generally preceded the introduction of the Verdi scores put up the backs of the critics, are possibilities which might furnish some key to the solution of the problem which this opposition provides for us who are considering it to-day.

We may be told that, to early critics, Verdi's artistic career was a difficult one to judge, since it was so peculiarly progressive—unique, in the way in which it gradually led up to the culminating excellence seen in Aïda, Otello, and Falstaff; but, unhappily for such a theory, the critical notices were not correspondingly appreciative and graduating. Verdi was wrong, always wrong, no good: "lock, stock, and barrel" he had to be dismissed as worthless and hopeless. A slow unfolding of the composer's musical manner and method, together with a corresponding recognition from his critics, would be understandable enough; but we do not get this. Our study of the critical processes leaves us with the conviction that he was knocked about like a tennis ball. Little wonder that the critic of the Illustrated London News felt constrained, on behalf of the maltreated, half-murdered man, to call "fair play." Then, much that was written was as contradictory as are scientific negatives and positives; while we all know that prophetic warnings and predictions alike have been singularly belied. This opera would not "live," and that was the worst of even Verdi's worst operas, yet to-day such compositions are amongst us, and being listened to with delight! We have demonstrated, we hope, beyond doubt how in the case of Rigoletto—one instance that will suffice—an opera was one day declared to be without merit, only to be held up subsequently by the same journal as a sample of musical excellence.

It is inconceivable that there were no signs, no glimmerings, no foreshadowings in early years, nor during Verdi's Second period, of that great genius which has given us an Aïda and a Falstaff, two grand classic works as far removed as fire and water in their tragedy and comedy, as well as in their eastern and western colouring and flavour. Could the critics really see no great future awaiting the man who wrote Ernani, Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, and La Traviata? Was there no promise of that store of art to be opened to us in Verdi's Third period works? Was there not a veritable rough diamond here, awaiting only to be shorn of its excrescences, and subjected to the lapidary's art to become a precious jewel? Did not the genius of the great operatic composer exist in embryo, while Verdi was taking the lower rungs of the artistic ladder? Was there not the making of a rare son of art in one who could rouse the popular enthusiasm as this Italian was doing? Did the public on all sides clamour and acclaim, pack and squeeze themselves, and listen with pent up wonder and surprise, all after nothing? Dozens of such pertinent questions could be put in respect to the relations of many of the public and critics towards Verdi.

Our views concerning musical criticism have been expressed.[79] Among all the qualities however, necessary to him deserving to rank as a capable critic, is one which he should be called upon to exercise more frequently than any other, viz., the power of detecting what is good in a man; and that instanter. Make, not break, should be, but is not, the motto for every censor entrusted with the power of the press-pen. In the case of Verdi, it was war to the knife. Delenda est Carthago went forth, and Carthage must be destroyed. But it wasn't. The criticism which for the most part was meted out to Verdi rarely ever contained a sentence of encouragement, but instead, the man who was some day to become the wonder and admiration of the entire musical world was hooted and howled at as should be an impostor. Many a man would have taken refuge behind the shelter of an undisturbed mediocrity, but somehow, the critics could not scotch this species-specimen. Verdi went on in his way, and the censors who abused, went theirs; with what result we know to-day. The critics are silenced and Verdi reigns, musically, in excelsis.

How the late Mr. Chorley and Mr. Davison—these particularly—could trace so little of the good promise in Verdi surpasses our comprehension. They were men of the highest integrity and attainments, and purposed injustice would furnish the most foolish of explanations of the situation. Verdi had the great public of this and of other countries on his side, however, and on this he was content to rely. Public opinion once again proved to be right, and Verdi now stands vindicated. Happily both the Times and Athenæum have long since ceased to oppose the master. The critics of these journals and those of other English newspapers now fall down and worship Verdi—and well they might!

This aspect, this experience of the composer's career is not without its lessons. It shows that we must not judge of a man or of his work by what we read only; that individual culture and practical knowledge provide the best key wherewith to unlock the door of every repository of science and art; but, chiefly, does it prove that no amount of adverse criticism or opposition can, or should, be permitted to bar the way to that goal of high excellence which every earnest worker with an honest conviction and high purpose before him has every right to persevere towards, no matter what the difficulties, until his fullest realisations have been attained. In this respect, Verdi's experience supplies a splendid all-time lesson.

CHAPTER XI
EFFECT UPON AND PLACE IN OPERA

Origin of Opera—Melody in music—The first opera, Dafne—Monteverde's advances—Early opera orchestration—Gluck's reformed style in Orfeo and Alceste—A complete structure—Verdi's starting point—Wagner's methods—Verdi's early operas—Don Carlos and an altered style—Its reception—A Third, or matured period method—Its characteristics—Aïda, Otello, and Falstaff—Verdi's disciples—Opera as a social need past and present—Its reasonable decline—Verdi's ultimate position—His lasting works.

To perfectly understand Verdi it is necessary to know something of the origin and development of opera, both as a form and an institution.

The Italian school of music had been a power since 1480-1520, when Pope Julian II. invited Belgian, or Netherlands school, musicians to Italy to take charge of its musical affairs. The first distinguished Italian master was Festa (d. 1545), remarkable for that grace and melody which have ever characterised the Italian school. Palestrina (1514-1594), Magister puerorum at St. Peter's, Rome, followed, and then came the awakening of opera. It was natural that this life should spring from Italy. The sky above, and the earth beneath, constituted a rare cradle of art. Melody in music is paramount; technically it forms the wings that give flight to every movement; without it, music would be a helpless mass, unendurable to consider. Once present, melody carries all before it. This was a perfectly natural growth in Italy, more so than it has ever been found to be in any other country, for the national life, habits, language, and physical conditions all favoured an expression of the mind in the melodically beautiful. In opera, melody was ever the great essential feature in the eyes of the Italians, and although there have been struggles to dislodge, or depose it, the evening of Verdi's career—the culminating point in the history of Italian Opera—furnishes the convincing proof that tune still remains the predominant factor in successful dramatic construction and realisation; for what would be the value of Aïda, Otello, and Falstaff, if they had not melody?

Musical authorities accept Dafne, produced in 1594, as the first actual opera. It was the work of a few Florentine literati, who had banded together as a society, with the aim to revive the ancient Greek dramatic style—in fact to restore the theatre of Æschylus and Sophocles. It had words by Rinuccini and music by Peri. The feature of this dramatic-musical novelty was its musica-parlante—a species of monody, or declamation, claimed to be à la Grec. Out of this grew "recitative"—so important an element in vocal music that it is difficult to imagine how the art could exist without it. Song, tune, or melody, whichever name we apply to it, might be, and probably would have been, dispensed with, if all the notions and novelties of the Wagner cult had taken effect; but, recitative must always stand as a connecting link between the chorus and other concerted pieces in the opera.

The orchestral accompaniments to Dafne consisted of a harpsichord, chittarone—which was a sort of guitar—a lyre, and a lute. This meant a scanty orchestra compared with the vast instrumental resources adopted by Meyerbeer, Wagner, and by Verdi himself. When the second opera, Euridice, was produced—this was at Florence in 1600—it contained, for the first time, all the constituents wanting in opera, viz. recitative, air, chorus, and a hidden orchestra.

Opera proper was, therefore, purely an Italian product, which, with all its defects and inadmissibilities, has held its ground for three centuries. If, too, during this long period it has seemed as little more than a luxurious form of amusement for quality people in England, it must be remembered that the great middle class here have tasted it, while the student and amateur have considered and digested the musical stage-play, and found it invested with a noble influence and character that could scarcely fail to elevate, where the ordinary drama might lower the public taste and morals. In Italy the opera is as much the necessary food of the common people as of the aristocracy.

Monteverde (1566-1650) stamped a second period in opera. He invested recitative with greater strength and freedom, and astonished contemporary purists with his audacious orchestral designs. In his Orfeo, produced in 1603, Monteverde incorporated every known instrument, viz. two harpsichords, two lyres, ten violas, three bass violas, two violins, flute, clarions, trombones, guitars or chittaroni, and the organ.

It is easy to realise the almost boundless possibilities of music when it comes to be recognised and manipulated as a medium of expression or impression; while many readers will be familiar with the almost superhuman achievements of the great tone-poets in handling the resources of music to this end—the end and aim of all music worthy the name. It was that prince of Italian harmonists, Monteverde, who took opera to the borders of that almost limitless field, where the great melodists and colourists took it up, making a permanent life art-form and a speaking body from the otherwise lifeless art materials.

Scarlatti (1659-1725) impressed the aria or principal song, from which time melody began to receive that attention which led finally to its being the principal constituent in Italian opera. Lotti, Caldara, Gasparini, Jommelli, Porporo, and Buononcini, who followed, all gave prominence to the soloists at the cost of the chorus and other concerted pieces, thus leading steadily up to the great scenas which Verdi created.

Gluck (1714-1787) came with a regenerating mission. A century and a half's growth of opera in Italy had reduced it to a mere exhibition of singing, and to restore it to something of an embodiment of all the arts—architecture, painting, poetry, music, and dancing—was Gluck's mission. His reformed style, as given in Orfeo (1762), and later in Alceste (1767), certainly justified his demand for reform, and will always entitle him to be called "the saviour of opera." His influence bore more upon the French opera than the Italian, however, and it was left to his great contemporary Piccini (1728-1800) to bring the old Italian model up to the date of Gluck's new style. To this end he effected improvements in the arias, duets, and vocal pieces, curtailed the repeats, employed several themes instead of one for his finali, all of which tended to put a new complexion on Italian opera. Then arose Spontini (1784-1851), who advanced the dramatic side of opera; Rossini (1792-1868), insisting upon larger choruses and the strengthening of the wind and brass department of the orchestra; with, finally, Donizetti (1797-1848), and Bellini (1802-1835), whose melodic exuberance simply embarrassed and vitiated Italian opera.

Such, briefly, is the story of the rise and development of Italian opera, which, thanks to the labours of his great predecessors, was a reasonably complete art-form long before Verdi scored his first operatic success with Nabucco, albeit it had not many characteristics which it now has. The First period Verdi had no great need to improve, or add to, the structure of opera; what was before him chiefly was the work of embellishing and highly colouring the edifice of dramatic musical art (though we know he did immeasurably more)—a labour for which his rare sense of colour and combination peculiarly fitted him.

Verdi's starting point was where Rossini, Mercadante, Donizetti, and Bellini had left Italian opera; and, but for circumstances quite outside himself, he might have gone on writing operas of the Ernani, I Lombardi, and Il Trovatore type, leaving his later grander efforts, his chefs d'œuvre, unwritten. But a great object appeared suddenly in the musical firmament. Wagner (1813-1883), with his train of fads and fancies, swept across the horizon, leaving unmistakable traces of his passage. At first, content with the old traditional opera—with which he might have done wonders—this vast genius set about advancing and propagating unusual ideas concerning operatic usage and creation. The established forms and systems were chiefly attacked.

In Italian opera, music and melody were the prime considerations. Under the Wagnerian teaching, the full and right dramatic exposition became the chief aim. This unquestionably involved a subserviency of the beautiful in music. With Wagner the dramatic language is the most essential part of the work. In the music of the Meistersinger, for instance, he "fitted music to the thought expressed in language so imperceptibly that the latter is the dominant element." In Tristan und Isolde is the clear divorce from traditional form. Declamation, supported by music expressing the meaning of the words, displaces all the old-time operatic methods—dramatic ensembles, recitative alternated with song, closed and half closed forms, etc. This was a return to the long deceased monody of Peri and Monteverde, and in absolute contradistinction to all that the great Italian, German, and French music masters had done. Other and minor notions, such as the leit motif (the kiss theme), the ever-recurring phrases that were constructed in order to be identified with this or that character, distinguished the Wagnerian style—a style which it is necessary for the student of Verdi to be able to recognise, because, as we have seen, Verdi is alleged to have been largely influenced by Wagner, although most certainly he was not.

Verdi has written in all some thirty operas, which throughout are largely imbued with characteristics of his country's opera music. This is particularly a feature in such First period works as Nabucco, I Lombardi, Ernani, I Due Foscari, and Luisa Miller. In the Second period operas, Rigoletto, La Traviata, Il Trovatore, and Un Ballo in Maschera, are traces of outside influence, Meyerbeer, Auber, and Halévy being descernible despite the composer's natural abundance of graceful melody and charming naïveté; an unmistakable art-struggle suggestive of a transition process was, as we have seen, revealed in Simon Boccanegra. Verdi could not but have been aware that Weber and Spohr were investing German national opera with that romanticism which must always be its distinguishing feature. He felt impelled to give more character to, and to get more place for, his own country's opera; he set about imbuing it, therefore, with a stronger emotional element—an excess of that desperate passion characteristic of the southern temperament. Verdi's immediate predecessors, Rossini and others, had never left the accepted path of song after song of luxuriant warmth, suited to the whims and vocal abilities of this or that singer; but Verdi was to revolutionise all this. The chorus—concerted music generally—and grand finales were no longer to suffer in order to obtain a preponderance of songs to appease the vanity of the singers who sang them. His first attempt to do so was an utter failure!

It was not until Les Vêpres Siciliennes and Don Carlos that we see a determined détour from the accepted Italian lyric-drama lines. Don Carlos was modelled after the style of French Grand opera as formed by Rossini and Donizetti, and became Verdi-cum-Meyerbeer. The result was a failure and a sorry mixture—something of a musical salad, the ingredients of which formed "a poor concoction calculated to derange the strongest musical digestion." The unadulterated Verdi, with the old familiar bel canto, was far better than the adulterated one. Those scenes where the established art-forms had been deserted in order to give vent to orchestral painting or new combinations were unanimously declared to be the failings of the operas.

With the important operas which have adorned the later years of Verdi's life—his Third period works—the master has undoubtedly presented his grandest aspect. Aïda, Otello, and Falstaff are a tremendous art advance upon anything that Verdi had accomplished before. These are operas which will keep Italian opera alive, if that effete institution can be preserved by mortal means. In these compositions Verdi reasserts himself, and awakes to an altogether new and vaster sense of what his country's opera should be, as well as what he himself could make it. Familiarised as the public had been with Tannhäuser and Lohengrin, it expected, in fresh works for the stage, a more logical and dramatic consistency. Any new Italian opera required merit as a drama, and needed to be something more than a series of pretty tunes. Aïda was the full enunciation of Verdi's new principles. In this work were discarded such orthodox processes as the splitting up of the acts into recitatives, which meant a gain in dramatic action and continuity in the play. The old-fashioned forms, the aria d'entratà, the cabaletta, and canzonetta, were discontinued for less continued melody, piecemeal tunes, lending quite a different aspect to the complete work. The interest in the declamatory music considerably increased, and all was so welded together that a much more satisfactory and entertaining whole was the result. The orchestration was decidedly new for Verdi, partaking, as it did, of the gorgeous Meyerbeer rather than the Wagner character. There was much picture-painting both in the abstract and the concrete. The evident intent was to paint or colour instrumentally; to illustrate the text orchestrally, and to impart not only geographical, but local, personal colour. This was essentially what the world was pleased to call "Wagnerian"—hence the outcry and the allegation that Verdi had turned "Wagnerite." The fact was, that since writing Don Carlos, Les Vêpres Siciliennes, and La Forza del Destino, Verdi had become more "Germanised," although the term must not be taken to imply that he was less the Italian, or any the more a copyist or impressionist. His state was owing not to Wagner's nor to Meyerbeer's influence and model any more than to Weber's, but to the ambition of the master himself. If Meyerbeer could employ the orchestra slavishly and make it so important and successful a feature in the Franco-German operatic ensemble, why should not he, Verdi, do as much for Italian art?

Otello was yet a further emphasis. When first heard in London, musical minds immediately perceived not only a remarkable work for a composer full of years, but also an opera which fully confirmed the tactics advanced in Aïda. Another opera had brought forth another demonstration of the composer's remarkable dramatic powers, ever developing in each successive opera. Otello was, unquestionably, worthy to rank with Aïda; and performance after performance has proved this.

As a second example of Verdi's new conceptions respecting Italian national opera it contained much declamation, and consequently less of that purposely lavish and luxuriant melody, for which Verdi amongst all his contemporaries is most famous. Of so-called Wagnerian influence there was little or none. The leit motif and other fads credited to the Bayreuth master, though not wholly his, are conspicuous by their absence. Otello stood simply a thoroughly "up-to-date" Italian opera, a species of modern lyric drama by a great master who had seen musical changes going on about him, and had not disregarded them. It was natural that the Wagner cry should reach Verdi's ears; it was natural that the Italian master should give the world a taste of how far the new "gospel" had impressed him. Ever abreast of the times, Verdi saw a deeper and broadening meaning overtaking the lyric drama; and, reserving to himself the right to speak as he perceived, he published Aïda. This language he again laid down in Otello, a splendid outcome of latter-day genius. The same may be said of Falstaff. It completes a triad of masterpieces which ought to breathe new life into the Anglo-Italian lyric drama, if so be the decrees of fashion, and not a dearth of operatic talent and novelty, have not already administered the death-blow to that relic of the good old times.

It is not difficult, even if it be premature, to deliberate upon Verdi's probable place in, and influence upon, musical art. His labours, exemplified in such dramatic-music masterpieces as Aïda, Otello, and Falstaff, prove incontestably that perfected Italian opera, of such workmanship as these operas, crowning the later years of their great composer's life, can be, and is, a more refined art-production than either the most advanced or the least extravagant of the operatic models championed by Wagner, or any other reformer of the lyric drama.

Verdi has a young Italian school of imitators—Boito, Cortesi, Ponchielli, Marchetti, Faccio, Pedrotti, Pinsuti, Mascagni, and others. Can it be urged that these can, or will, take up opera as left by Verdi? Is Italy training a school of young composers capable of carrying on Verdi's work? The answer cannot be given in the affirmative. Verdi is declared to have said, "I can die in peace now that Mascagni has produced his opera." For our part, however, we remain dubious; moreover Verdi never made such a remark.

The issue of the whole matter turns upon quite another pivot. Verdi's labours, achievements, and successes are unquestioned; but it is the point of the vitality of the institution—the opera-house here—which forms the doubtful feature. Fifty years ago this luxurious appendage of fashionable and not always well-behaved society was a necessity. Then there was no Club-land, and the place for meeting everybody who was anybody was the opera-house. Its "omnibus" box was crowded with "blood," who came not to listen to the opera, but to yawn and chatter. Then was the opera-house the resort and rendezvous of the élite of rank and fashion, when an enterprising impresario was justified in burdening himself with the unenviable task of steering the difficult craft, assisted as he was by willing subscribers, most of whom could be depended upon to, and did, pay ample subscriptions beforehand. Such is not the case now. All is changed in London.

Nowadays society uses the opera fitfully, and not from a sense of necessity; attending it when so disposed, and leaving the burden of "ways and means" upon the manager bold enough to embark upon the perilous enterprise. The march of time has altered the opera as it has altered everything else, save the weather and the seasons. The three-volume novel is out of fashion with publishers; the principles of Christianity are being preached and practised more and more outside the churches built for the exposition of such principles; and among other vast changes, opera is fast declining in England and elsewhere. When our gracious Queen was young, an able critic and laudator temporis acti, lamenting the then condition of opera in general, and welcoming Verdi to England, wrote—"A better state of things is, however, we trust, approaching. The appearance of a composer of so much originality of genius as Verdi heralds, it may be hoped, that of a new and more ambitious school, whose masters will not be satisfied with tickling the ear and pleasing the fancy, but will seek for the more permanent and legitimate sources of effect."[80]

Nowadays people care little or nothing for the opera compared with the old-times feelings. They are indifferent as to whether it stands or falls. It is not thought worth while to abuse or blame a composer, as Verdi was long journalistically treated after he came here. There are no choreographic triumphs now. Such ballets as Giselle and Diane, with stars of the ballet like Taglioni, Grisi, and Cerito, have disappeared from the opera stage for ever. A vast change has come over operatic matters for the worse, and now that the legitimate drama is established, and the "Variety" entertainment has caught on at the music halls, the slow continued decline of Italian opera may reasonably, if regretfully, be expected.

But of Verdi, apart from this unhappy prospect? Some of his early works, like those of other composers, are getting out of date and declining in popularity. Rarely is one of his First period works given in England now; while of his Second period operas not one, according to certain critics, will long hold ground. The Trovatore, the music of which has traversed every known region of the globe, and would be taken up by the masses again save for the attractions of the music halls, is already relegated by ambitious critics to the "retired list," and responsible censors describe La Traviata as that "sickly opera,"[81] never omitting to note the falling off in the attendance when it and other purely Italian school operas are performed.[82] Occasionally, however, they undoubtedly serve a purpose, as when brought forward as the late Mr. Mapleson gave La Traviata at Her Majesty's Theatre (in the 1887 season), with Madame Patti in the title rôle, and prices were trebled. It is fairly safe to predict that Verdi's First and Second, or traditional period operas will all go in time, but they possess such melodic vitality that it would not be safe to say how soon. Many generations may yet hear them.

Verdi's Third period works, Aïda, Otello, and Falstaff, change the argument. They are the greatest and grandest specimens ever contributed to the répertoire of Italian opera. In them Verdi has reached the perfection of his art as he knows it, and has brought the musical drama to a point which cannot consistently be passed. It is doubtful whether another Italian composer will ever be found to extend the national opera as left by Verdi in these matured period works—compositions which, everything considered, are more satisfactory, and probably more permanent, because more reasonable, than any musical drama that has emanated from the modern German school. These Third period works, by the illustrious Italian, will last so long as there is a dramatic lyric stage, whether this be in England or abroad.

Verdi must ever be remembered for the extravagant ear-taking melodies of his early operas, which have amply justified their existence; but he will best live musically by his Third period operas and his Requiem Mass. These compositions must always furnish a glorious summit to Verdi's pinnacle of musical fame. At the same time it will be, we predict, many a long day before the last is heard of Il Trovatore and Rigoletto.