progress which Italian opera has taken, from the time when Rossini overcame the taste formed by the last masters of the eighteenth century till the advent of the impetuous champions of realism who disputed popularity with him in the closing years of the nineteenth. His ideals when he wrote “Oberto” in 1839 were those of his immediate predecessors, Bellini (bel-lee´-nee) and Donizetti (don-nee-dzet´-tee); but his voice was ruder,—so rude, indeed, as to lead Rossini (ros-see´-nee) to describe him as a “musician with a helmet.” This rudeness was the first expression of his desire for passionate and truthful expression, a desire which at the height of his spontaneous creative powers reached its finest flower in the final trio of “Il Trovatore” and final quartet of “Rigoletto,” two examples of operatic writing which are as good in their way as any that French or German opera has to show.

VERDI’S BIRTHPLACE AND HIS HOME

It is no depreciation of the mature and perfect Verdi of “Otello” and “Falstaff” to say that he reached the climax of his melodic inventiveness in “Il Trovatore” (tro-vah-to´-re), “Traviata” (trah-vee-ah´-tah), and “Rigoletto” (ree-go-let´-to), and that “Aïda” (ah-ee´-dah), which is now his most universally admired work, is such because it is a product of his combined melodic inspiration and his marvelous judgment, skill, and taste, developed by study and reflection. The greater charm which “Aïda” exerts now is due as much to the advanced ideals of the public, which Wagner was largely instrumental in creating, as to the refined and deepened sense of dramatic propriety and beauty which Verdi discloses in its melody, harmony, and instrumentation.

GIUSEPPE VERDI

From a painting by Millicovitz.

LA SCALA OPERA HOUSE

Where many of Verdi’s works had their first performance.

If his mind was more impetuous in the sixth decade of the last century than in the tenth, it was of infinitely finer fiber at the last. When his creative impulses came to wait upon reflection his music showed much nicer adjustment of the poetical and musical elements than had prevailed in his works thitherto, his harmonies became richer, the blatancy of his orchestration disappeared, and his instruments became more beautiful and truthful associates in expression with the singers of the drama than they had ever been. When he reached “Falstaff” and “Otello” the last bit of slag which had vulgarized his earlier works was cast aside, and he stepped forth as full an exemplar of national art as Wagner. In this last incarnation of the Italian spirit he was helped by his collaborator Boito (bo-ee´-to), a poet as well as a composer, and therefore a type of the true dramatic artist as he existed in ancient Greece, and as Wagner conceived him when he projected his Artwork of the Future. It was Verdi’s association with Boito which was largely responsible for the fact that he became the successor as he had been the predecessor of Mascagni (mahs-kahn´-yee).

After the death of Verdi nobody was readier to concede how much he had meant to Italian art than Mascagni, who had been the first to profit by the revolt against Verdi which came with the advent of Wagner’s art in Italy. When “Lohengrin” (lo´-en-grin) made its way into Florence and other places many pupils at the conservatories forsook Verdi and followed Wagner. The effect may have been a good one. There can scarcely be