The Opera | Page 3

hardly surpassed in history. La Bruyère's
'Je ne sais comment l'opéra avec une musique si parfaite, et une
dépense toute royale, a pu réussir à m'ennuyer', shows how little he had
realised the fatiguing effect of theatrical splendour too persistently
displayed. St. Evrémond finds juster cause for his bored state of mind
in the triviality of the subject-matter of operas, and his words are worth
quoting at some length: 'La langueur ordinaire où je tombe aux opéras,
vient de ce que je n'en ai jamais vu qui ne m'ait paru méprisable dans la
disposition du sujet, et dans les vers. Or, c'est vainement que l'oreille
est flattée, et que les yeux sont charmés, si l'esprit ne se trouve pas
satisfait; mon âme d'intelligence avec mon esprit plus qu'avec mes sens,
forme une résistance aux impressions qu'elle peut recevoir, ou pour le
moins elle manque d'y prêter un consentement agréable, sans lequel les
objets les plus voluptueux même ne sauraient me donner un grand
plaisir. Une sottise chargée de musique, de danses, de machines, de
décorations, est une sottise magnifique; c'est un vilain fonds sous de
beaux dehors, où je pénètre avec beaucoup de désagrément.'
The cant phrase in use in FitzGerald's days, 'the lyric stage', might have
conveyed a hint of the truth to a man who cared for the forms of
literature as well as its essence. For, in its highest development, opera
is most nearly akin to lyrical utterances in poetry, and the most
important musical revolution of the present century has been in the
direction of increasing, not diminishing, the lyrical quality of operatic
work. The Elizabethan writers--not only the dramatists, but the authors
of romances--interspersed their blank verse or their prose narration with
short lyrical poems, just as in the days of Mozart the airs and concerted
pieces in an opera were connected by wastes of recitative that were
most aptly called 'dry'; and as it was left to a modern poet to tell, in a
series of lyrics succeeding one another without interval, a dramatic
story such as that of Maud, so was it a modern composer who carried to
completion, in 'Tristan und Isolde', the dramatic expression of passion
at the highest point of lyrical utterance. It is no more unnatural for the

raptures of Wagner's lovers, or the swan-song of ecstasy, to be sung,
than for the young man whose character Tennyson assumes, to utter
himself in measured verse, sometimes of highly complex structure. The
two works differ not in kind, but in degree of intensity, and to those
whose ears are open to the appeal of music, the power of expression in
such a case as this is greater beyond all comparison than that of poetry,
whether declaimed or merely read. That so many people recognise the
rational nature of opera in the present day is in great measure due to
Wagner, since whose reforms the conventional and often idiotic libretti
of former times have entirely disappeared. In spite of the sneers of the
professed anti-Wagnerians, which were based as often as not upon
some ineptitude on the part of the translator, not upon any inherent
defect in the original, the plots invented by Wagner have won for
themselves an acceptance that may be called world-wide. And
whatever be the verdict on his own plots, there can be no question as to
the superiority of the average libretto since his day. No composer dare
face the public of the present day with one of the pointless, vapid sets
of rhymes, strung together with intervals of bald recitative, that pleased
our forefathers, and equally inconceivable is the re-setting of libretti
that have served before, in the manner of the eighteenth century
composers, a prodigious number of whom employed one specially
admired 'book' by Metastasio.
Unfortunately those who take an intelligent interest in opera do not
even yet form a working majority of the operatic audience in any
country. While the supporters of orchestral, choral, or chamber music
consist wholly of persons, who, whatever their degree of musical
culture, take a serious view of the art so far as they can appreciate it,
and therefore are unhampered by the necessity of considering the
wishes of those who care nothing whatever about the music they
perform. In connection with every operatic enterprise the question
arises of how to cater for a great class who attend operatic
performances for any other reason rather than that of musical
enjoyment, yet without whose pecuniary support the undertaking must
needs fail at once. Nor is it only in England that the position is difficult.
In countries where the opera enjoys a Government subsidy, the
influences that make against true art are as many and as strong as they

are elsewhere. The taste of the Intendant in a German town, or that