men will be content to
echo his words. The plot is less dramatically coherent than that of 'Le
Nozze di Figaro,' but it ranges over a far wider gamut of human feeling.
From the comic rascality of Leporello to the unearthly terrors of the
closing scene is a vast step, but Mozart is equally at home in both. His
incomparable art of characterisation is here displayed in even more
consummate perfection than in the earlier work. The masterly way in
which he differentiates the natures of his three soprani--Anna, a type
of noble purity; Elvira, a loving and long-suffering woman, alternating
between jealous indignation and voluptuous tenderness; and Zerlina, a
model of rustic coquetry--may especially be remarked, but all the
characters are treated with the same profound knowledge of life and
human nature. Even in his most complicated concerted pieces he never
loses grip of the idiosyncrasies of his characters, and in the most
piteous and tragic situations he never relinquishes for a moment his
pure ideal of intrinsic musical beauty. If there be such a thing as
immortality for any work of art, it must surely be conceded to 'Don
Giovanni.'

'Cosi fan tutte,' his next work, was produced at Vienna in January,
1790. It has never been so successful as its two predecessors, chiefly
on account of its libretto, which, though a brisk little comedy of
intrigue, is almost too slight to bear a musical setting. The plot
turns upon a wager laid by two young officers with an old cynic of their
acquaintance to prove the constancy of their respective sweethearts.
After a touching leave-taking they return disguised as Albanians and
proceed to make violent love each one to the other's _fiancee_. The
ladies at first resist the ardent strangers, but end by giving way, and
the last scene shows their repentance and humiliation when they discover
that the too attractive foreigners are their own lovers after all. There
is much delightful music in the work, and it is greatly to be regretted
that it should have been so completely cast into the shade by 'Le Nozze
di Figaro,'

Mozart's next opera, 'La Clemenza di Tito,' was hastily written, while
he was suffering from the illness which in the end proved fatal. The
libretto was an adaptation of an earlier work by Metastasio. Cold and
formal, and almost totally devoid of dramatic interest, it naturally
failed to inspire the composer. The form in which it was cast compelled
him to return to the conventions of