D.G. LEP.
_dis-gra-zi-a! e vo-i? Son qui. Chi e_
more's the pit-y! and you, Sir? Here too. Who's

D.G.
_mor-to, voi, o il vec-chio? Che do-_
been killed, you or the old one? What a

LEP.
_man-da da bes-tia! il vec-chio. Bra-vo!_
ques-tion, you boo-by! the old one. Bra-vo!]

[Sidenote: _Its characteristics._]

Of course it is left to the intelligence and taste of the singers to
bring out the effects in a recitative, but in this specimen it ought
to be noted how sluggishly the disgruntled _Leporello_ replies to the
brisk question of _Don Giovanni_, how correct is the rhetorical pause
in "you, or the old one?" and the greater sobriety which comes over
the manner of the _Don_ as he thinks of the murder just committed, and
replies, "the old one."

[Sidenote: _Recitative of some sort necessary._]

[Sidenote: _The speaking voice in opera._]

I am strongly inclined to the belief that in one form or the other,
preferably the accompanied, recitative is a necessary integer in the
operatic sum. That it is possible to accustom one's self to the change
alternately from speech to song we know from the experiences made with
German, French, and English operas, but these were not true lyric
dramas, but dramas with incidental music. To be a real lyric drama an
opera ought to be musical throughout, the voice being maintained from
beginning to end on an exalted plane. The tendency to drop into the
speaking voice for the sake of dramatic effect shown by some tragic
singers does not seem to me commendable. Wagner relates with
enthusiasm how Madame Schroeder-Devrient in "Fidelio" was wont to give
supreme emphasis to the phrase immediately preceding the trumpet
signal in the dungeon scene ("Another step, and you are _dead_!") by
speaking the last word "with an awful accent of despair." He then
comments:

"The indescribable effect of this manifested itself to all
like an agonizing plunge from one sphere into another, and
its sublimity consisted in this, that with lightning
quickness a glimpse was given to us of the nature of both
spheres, of which one was the ideal, the other the real."

[Sidenote: _Wagner and Schroeder-Devrient._]

I have heard a similar effect produced by Herr Niemann and Madame
Lehmann, but could not convince myself that it was not an extremely
venturesome experiment. Madame Schroeder-Devrient sa