izes
and claims Silvana as his daughter. Everybody now looks with contempt
on the low-born maiden, and the Rhinegrave commands them to be put into
prison; but Gerold believing in his bride's innocence though
appearances are against her, entreats her once more to defend herself.
Silvana only asserts her innocence and her love for Gerold, but will
give no proofs. So the collier with his daughter and the minstrel are
taken to prison. But when the keeper opens the door in the morning,
the minstrel has disappeared.

The old Count, disgusted at the idea of his son's union with a
collier's daughter accuses her of being a sorceress. He compels her to
confess that she seduced his son by magic arts, and Silvana consents to
say anything rather than injure {313} her lover.--She is conducted
before a court and condemned to the funeral pile. Gerold, not once
doubting her, is resolved to share her death, when in the last critical
moment the minstrel once more raises his voice and finishes the ballad,
which the Rhinegrave had interrupted so violently. He tells the
astonished hearers, that the wife and daughter of the Count, who was
slain by his brother, were not burnt in the castle, but escaped to the
forest, finding kindly refuge in a poor collier's hut where the mother
died, leaving her child, Silvana, under his protection.

The Rhinegrave, full of remorse, embraces Silvana, beseeching her
forgiveness, and the lovers are united.

LA SOMNAMBULA.

Opera in two acts by VINCENZO BELLINI.

Text by FELICE ROMANI.

This opera is decidedly of the best of Bellini's muse. Though it does
not reach the standard of Norma, its songs are so rich and melodious,
that they seem to woo the ear and cannot be heard without pleasure.

Add to these advantages a really fine as well as touching libretto, and
it may be easily understood, why the opera has not yet disappeared from
the stage repertory, though composed more than fifty years ago.

It is a simple village-peasant story, which we have to relate. The
scene of action is a village in {314} Switzerland, where the rich
farmer Elvino has married a poor orphan, Amina. The ceremony has taken
place at the magistrate's, and Elvino is about to obtain the sanction
of the church to his union, when the owner of the castle, Count
Rudolph, who fled from home in his boyhood, returns most unexpectedly
and, at once making love to Amina, excites the bridegroom's jealousy.
Lisa, the young owne