OTHER MODERN COMPOSERS
There is still a strong feeling among the lovers of French opera for Ambroise Thomas because of his “Mignon,” and Delibes because of his “Lakmé” and his ballets. The dramatic, or pantomimic, dance is getting a stronger hold on the stage every day, and nothing has yet been produced in this line more graceful or in all artistic elements more elegant than “Coppélia.” Saint-Saëns’s “Samson et Delilah,” though better fitted for the concert-room than the theater, has also won its way to recognition in America and England; while Germany, forgetting that Berlioz was pitted against Wagner by the characteristic spirit after the Franco-Prussian War, continues to pay deep respect to “Benvenuto Cellini.” Wolf-Ferrari, half German, half Italian, has fought his way to the fore with two works in which his genius shows at its best (“Il Segreto di Susanna” and “Le Donne Curiose”), and lately a Russian, Moussorgsky, has come crashing through the veneer of conventional art with his “Boris Godounov” in a way which justifies the cry raised long ago by this writer in the concert-room: “Beware of the Muscovite!”
ERMANO WOLF-FERRARI
Composer of The Jewels of The Madonna.
SUPPLEMENTARY READING
CHAPTERS OF OPERA
By H. E. Krehbiel.
A BOOK OF OPERAS
By H. E. Krehbiel.
Mr. Krehbiel’s books are admirable commentaries, written with authority and in a most readable style.
MEMOIRS OF THE OPERA
By George Hogarth.