of this man, who, by appealing to the
most unmusical side of the fashionable audiences of Europe,
did so much to discourage the production of operas with a
lofty aim. In France, however, his influence was unchallenged,
and we may almost say that, with few exceptions, the overture
to "William Tell" served as a model for all other operatic
overtures which have been written there up to the present
day. We have only to look at the many overtures by Herold,
Boieldieu, Auber, and others, to see the influence exerted by
this style of overture, which consisted of a slow introduction,
followed by a more or less sentimental melody, followed in
turn by a galop as a coda.

So fashionable had this kind of thing become that even Weber was
slightly touched by it. In the meanwhile, the French composers
were producing operas of a smaller kind, but, in many ways, of
a better character than the larger works of Rossini, Spontini,
and their followers. Had this flimsy Italian influence been
lacking, doubtless French opera to-day would be a different
thing from what it actually is. For these smaller operas by
Herold, Auber, and Boieldieu had many points in common with
the German _Singspiel_, which may be said to have saved German
musical art for Wagner.

What might have developed under better conditions is shown
in a work by Halevy entitled, "La juive," in which is to be
found promise of a great school of opera, a promise unhappily
stifled by the advent of an eclectic, the German Meyerbeer,
who blinded the public with unheard of magnificence of staging,
just as Rossini before him had blinded it by novel technical
feats. Meyerbeer thus drew the art into a new channel, and,
unluckily, this new tendency was not so much in the direction
of elevation of style as in sensationalism.

To return to the French composers. Herold was born in 1791,
in Paris, and his principal works were "Zampa" and the "Pre
aux clercs." The first was produced in 1831, the latter in
1832. He died in 1833. Boieldieu was born in 1775, in Rouen;
died 1834. His principal works were "La dame blanche" and
"Jean de Paris."

Halevy (Levy) was born in 1799, in Paris, and died in 1862;
his father was a Bavarian and his mother from Lorraine. He
wrote innumerable operas. His most famous work, "La juive,"
written in 1835, was killed by Meyerbeer's "Huguenots," and
produced a year later. He was professor of counterpoint at
the Conservatoire from 1831, among his pupils being Go