[98] Nourrit was the author of la Sylphide, one of the most interesting and best designed ballets ever produced; that is to say, he composed the libretto for which Taglioni arranged the groups and dances.
[99] See Raynouard's veracious "Histoire des Troubadours."
[100] When are we to hear the last of the "ovations" which singers are said to receive when they obtain, or even do not obtain, any very triumphant success? A great many singers in the present day would be quite hurt if a journal were simply to record their "triumph." An "ovation" seems to them much more important; and it cannot be said that this misapprehension is entirely their fault.
[101] That is to say, a quarter or a third part of an inch.
[102] "What a pity I did not think of this city fifty years ago!" exclaimed Signor Badiali, when he made his first appearance in London, in 1859.
[103] Joanna Wagner.
[104] Richard Wagner.
[105] Tancredi.
[106] Once more, I may mention that the "romantic opera" (in the sense in which the French say "romantic drama,") was founded by Da Ponte and Mozart, the former furnishing the plan, the latter constructing the work—"The Opera of Operas."
[107] The gist of M. Lenz's accusations against M. Oulibicheff amounts to this: that the latter, believing Mozart to have attained perfection in music, considered it impossible to go beyond him. "Ou ce caractère d'universalité que Mozart imprime à quelques-un de ses plus grandes chefs-d'œuvre," says M. Oulibicheff. "M'avait paru le progrès immense que la musique attendait pour se constituer définitivement,—pour se constituer, avais-je dit, et non pour ne plus avancer." According to M. Lenz, on the other hand, Mozart's master-pieces (after those which M. Lenz discovers among his latest compositions), are what preparatory studies are to a great work.