-With rapture Lothario embraces his long-lost Sperata. But
Mignon's jealous {230} love has found out that Philine followed her,
and she knows no peace until Wilhelm has proved to her satisfaction,
that he loves her best.

At last Philine graciously renounces Wilhelm and turns to Friedrich,
one of her many adorers, whom to his own great surprise she designates
as her future husband. Mignon at last openly avows her passion for
Wilhelm. The people, hearing of the arrival of their master, the
Marquis of Cypriani, alias Lothario, come to greet him with loud
acclamations of joy, which grow still louder, when he presents to them
his daughter Sperata and Wilhelm, her chosen husband.

LA MUETTE DE PORTICI.

Grand historical Opera in five acts by AUBER.

Text by SCRIBE.

This opera was first put on the stage in the Grand Opera-House at Paris
in the year 1828, and achieved for its author universal celebrity; not
only, because in it Auber rises to heights, which he never reached
either before or after, but because it is purely historical. The
"Muette" is like a picture, which attracts by its vivid reproduction of
nature. In the local tone, the southern temper, Auber has succeeded in
masterly fashion, and the text forms an admirable background to the
music. Its subject is the revolution of Naples in the year 1647 and
the rise and fall of Masaniello, the fisherman-King.

In the first act we witness the wedding of {231} Alfonso, son of the
Viceroy of Naples, with the Spanish Princess Elvira. Alfonso, who has
seduced Fenella, the Neapolitan Masaniello's dumb sister and abandoned
her, is tormented by doubts and remorse, fearing that she has committed
suicide. During the festival Fenella rushes in to seek protection from
the Viceroy, who has kept her a prisoner for the past month. She has
escaped from her prison and narrates the story of her seduction by
gestures, showing a scarf which her lover gave her. Elvira promises to
protect her and proceeds to the altar, Fenella vainly trying to follow.
In the chapel Fenella recognizes her seducer in the bridegroom of the
Princess. When the newly married couple come out of the church, Elvira
presents Fenella to her husband and discovers from the dumb girl's
gestures, that he was her faithless lover. Fenella flies, leaving
Alfonso and Elvira in sorrow and despair.

In the second act the fishermen, who have been brooding in silence over
the tyranny of their foes, begin to