Dolores Bacon.
CONTENTS
| CHAPTER | PAGE | |
| [I.] | Balfe: The Bohemian Girl | [3] |
| [II.] | Beethoven: Fidelio | [35] |
| [III.] | Berlioz: The Damnation of Faust | [51] |
| [IV.] | Bizet: Carmen | [69] |
| [V.] | DeKoven: Robin Hood | [95] |
| [VI.] | Flotow: Martha | [105] |
| [VII.] | Humperdinck: Hänsel and Gretel | [135] |
| [VIII.] | Mascagni: Cavalleria Rusticana | [152] |
| [IX.] | Meyerbeer: The Prophet | [163] |
| [X.] | Mozart: The Magic Flute | [191] |
| [XI.] | Sullivan: Pinafore | [218] |
| [XII.] | Verdi: Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, Aïda | [238] |
| [XIII.] | Wagner: The Nibelung Ring, The Mastersingers of Nuremberg, Lohengrin | [306] |
OPERAS EVERY CHILD SHOULD
KNOW
BALFE
THE story of The Bohemian Girl is supposed to have been taken from a French ballet entitled The Gipsy, which was produced in Paris in 1839. Again, it is said to have been stolen from a play written by the Marquis de Saint-Georges, which was named La Bohémienne. However that may be, it would at first sight hardly seem worth stealing, but it has nevertheless been popular for many decades. Balfe, the composer, had no sense of dramatic composition and was not much of a musician, but he had a talent for writing that which could be sung. It was not always beautiful, but it was always practicable.
The original title of La Bohémienne has in its meaning nothing to do with Bohemia, and therefore a literal translation does not seem to have been especially applicable to the opera as Bunn made it. The story is placed in Hungary and not in Bohemia, and the hero came from Warsaw, hence the title is a misnomer all the way around. It was Balfe who tried to establish English opera in London, and to that purpose he wrote an opera or two in which his wife sang the principal rôles; but in the midst of that enterprise he received favourable propositions from Paris, and therefore abandoned the London engagement. When he went to Paris, The Bohemian Girl was only partly written, and he took from its score several of its arias for use in a new opera. When he returned to London he wrote new music for the old opera, and thus The Bohemian Girl knew many vicissitudes off, as well as on, the stage.