first impressed the
audience as a piece of theatrical burlesque, was raised to sublimity by
the solemn music written for it.

M. Bochsa some years afterward produced "Mose" as an oratorio in London,
and it failed. A new libretto, however, "Pietro L'Eremito,"* again
transformed the music into an opera.

* The same music was set to a poem founded on the first
crusade, all the most effective situations being
dramatically utilized for the Christian legend.

Ebers tells us that Lord Sefton, a distinguished connoisseur, only
pronounced the general verdict in calling it the greatest of serious
operas, for it was received with the greatest favor. A gentleman of high
rank was not satisfied with assuring the manager that he had deserved
well of his country, but avowed his determination to propose him for
membership at the most exclusive of aristocratic clubs--White's.

"La Donna del Lago," Rossini's next great work, also first produced at
the San Carlo during the Carnival of 1820, though splendidly performed,
did not succeed well the first night. The composer left Naples the same
night for Milan, and coolly informed every one _en route_ that the
opera was very successful, which proved to be true when he reached his
journey's end, for the Neapolitans on the second night reversed their
decision into an enthusiasm as marked as their coldness had been.

Shortly after this Rossini married his favorite _prima donna_, Madame
Colbran. He had just completed two of his now forgotten operas, "Bianca
e Faliero," and "Matilda di Shabran," but did not stay to watch their
public reception. He quietly took away the beautiful Colbran, and at
Bologne was married by the archbishop. Thence the freshly-wedded couple
visited Vienna, and Rossini there produced his "Zelmira," his wife
singing the principal part. One of the most striking of this composer's
works in invention and ingenious development of ideas, Carpani says
of it: "It contains enough to furnish not one but four operas. In this
work, Rossini, by the new riches which he draws from his prodigious
imagination, is no longer the author of 'Otello,' 'Tancredi,' 'Zoraide,'
and all his preceding works; he is another composer, new, agreeable,
and fertile, as much as at first, but with more command of himself, more
pure, more masterly, and, above all, more faithful to the interpretation
of the words. The forms of style employed in this opera according
to circumstances are so vari