e slightly modified
certain passages for several reasons: for instance, to augment the
effect by making the phrase more characteristic of the vocal
instrument, or to express more forcibly the composer's idea.

The following illustrations will render my meaning clearer. The
changes originated in the causes I have mentioned, and are attributed
to Madame Dorus-Gras:

[Music: "Robert, toi que j'aime"

tu vois mon effroi! tu vois mon effroi!

change

-froi! Ah!

Grace, grace pour moi-meme, pour toi-meme.]

The phrase "Grace, grace," in which Isabelle implores Robert of
Normandy's forgiveness, occurs three times. When it recurs for the
last time, a change from the printed text is not only justifiable; it
is demanded, in order to give additional intensity and power to the
phrase, and to avoid the monotony caused by mere repetition. This
modification is all the more defensible, as the composer has
substituted the orchestra, with the strings _tremolo_, for the
rhythmical harp-figure with which he accompanies the phrase on its
first and second presentations. Here is the accepted traditional
change:

[Music: Grace, grace pour moi-meme, pour toi-meme.]

Again, to sing the final cadenza of this air as Meyerbeer briefly
indicated it, would be impossible and absurd:

[Music: (as printed)

ah! grace pour moi.

(as sung)

ah! grace, ah! grace pour moi.]

Other changes have their origin in the fact that sometimes a great
climax is rendered impossible of realization because the musical
phrase culminates on a vowel-sound difficult of emission on that note,
and devoid of sonority; another word has sometimes to be substituted.
For this reason, in the first air of Alice in the same opera
(_Robert_), "_Va, dit-elle_," a verbal rearrangement is always
resorted to:

[Music: Sa mere va prier pour lui, sa mere va prier pour lui, sa mere
va prier pour lui, va prier]

To avoid the disagreeable and ineffective result produced by the high
descending passage on the word "lui" (pronounced in English as
"lwee"), the last few bars are performed thus:

[Music: sa mere va prier, sa mere va prier]

When _La Tosca_ (Puccini) was produced in French at the Opera-Comique,
Paris, the unfortunate artist to whom was allotted the tenor role was
expected by the translator to sing at full voice, and after a crashing
chord from the entire orchestra, marked _ffff_ in the score, the
following words:

[Music: au peril de ma vie]

As it was f