a libretto because, being of a lively and imaginative
temperament, she preferred to construct her own plots and put her own
words in the mouths of the singers. Though a constant attendant on the
opera, she never knew what "Il Trovatore" was about, which, perhaps,
is not so surprising after all. Doubtless the play which she had
fashioned in her own mind was more comprehensible than Verdi's medley
of burnt children and asthmatic dance rhythms. Madame de Stael went so
far as to condemn the German composers because they "follow too
closely the sense of the words," whereas the Italians, "who are truly
the musicians of nature, make the air and the words conform to each
other only in a general way."

[Sidenote: _The opera defended as an art-form._]

[Sidenote: _The classic tragedy._]

Now the present generation has witnessed a revolution in operatic
ideas which has lifted the poetical elements upon a plane not dreamed
of when opera was merely a concert in costume, and it is no longer
tolerable that it be set down as an absurdity. On the contrary, I
believe that, looked at in the light thrown upon it by the history of
the drama and the origin of music, the opera is completely justified
as an art-form, and, in its best estate, is an entirely reasonable and
highly effective entertainment. No mean place, surely, should be given
in the estimation of the judicious to an art-form which aims in an
equal degree to charm the senses, stimulate the emotions, and persuade
the reason. This, the opera, or, perhaps I would better say the lyric
drama, can be made to do as efficiently as the Greek tragedy did it,
so far as the differences between the civilizations of ancient Hellas
and the nineteenth century will permit. The Greek tragedy was the
original opera, a fact which literary study would alone have made
plain even if it were not clearly of record that it was an effort to
restore the ancient plays in their integrity that gave rise to the
Italian opera three centuries ago.

[Sidenote: _Genesis of the Greek plays._]

Every school-boy knows now that the Hellenic plays were simply the
final evolution of the dances with which the people of Hellas
celebrated their religious festivals. At the rustic Bacchic feasts of
the early Greeks they sang hymns in honor of the wine-god, and danced
on goat-skins filled with wine. He who held his footing best on the
treacherous surface carried home the wine as a reward. They contended
in athletic game