tic tastes
being grounded in Shakespeare, we should be inclined to put down "Don
Giovanni" as a musical tragedy; or, haunted by the Italian
terminology, as _Opera semiseria_; but Mozart calls it _Opera buffa_,
more in deference to the librettist's work, I fancy, than his own,
for, as I have suggested elsewhere,[E] the musician's imagination in
the fire of composition went far beyond the conventional fancy of the
librettist in the finale of that most wonderful work.

[Sidenote: _An Opera buffa._]

[Sidenote: _French Grand Opera._]

[Sidenote: _Opera comique._]

[Sidenote: _"Mignon."_]

[Sidenote: _"Faust."_]

It is well to remember that "Don Giovanni" is an _Opera buffa_ when
watching the buffooneries of _Leporello_, for that alone justifies
them. The French have _Grand Opera_, in which everything is sung to
orchestra accompaniment, there being neither spoken dialogue nor dry
recitative, and _Opera comique_, in which the dialogue is spoken. The
latter corresponds with the honorable German term _Singspiel_, and one
will not go far astray if he associate both terms with the English
operas of Wallace and Balfe, save that the French and Germans have
generally been more deft in bridging over the chasm between speech and
song than their British rivals. _Opera comique_ has another
characteristic, its _denouement_ must be happy. Formerly the _Theatre
national de l'Opera-Comique_ in Paris was devoted exclusively to
_Opera comique_ as thus defined (it has since abolished the
distinction and _Grand Opera_ may be heard there now), and, therefore,
when Ambroise Thomas brought forward his "Mignon," Goethe's story was
found to be changed so that _Mignon_ recovered and was married to
_Wilhelm Meister_ at the end. The Germans are seldom pleased with the
transformations which their literary masterpieces are forced to
undergo at the hands of French librettists. They still refuse to call
Gounod's "Faust" by that name; if you wish to hear it in Germany you
must go to the theatre when "Margarethe" is performed. Naturally they
fell indignantly afoul of "Mignon," and to placate them we have a
second finale, a _denouement allemand_, provided by the authors, in
which _Mignon_ dies as she ought.

[Sidenote: _Grosse Oper._]

[Sidenote: _Comic opera and operetta._]

[Sidenote: _Opera bouffe._]

[Sidenote: _Romantic operas._]

Of course the _Grosse Oper_ of the Germans is the French _Grand Opera_
and the English grand opera--but all t