A Book of Operas: Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music

A description of Carl Maria von Weber's opera, "Der Freischütz," ought to begin with a study of the overture, since that marvellous composition has lived on and on in the concer...

Beaumarchais wrote a trilogy of Figaro comedies, and if the tastes and methods of a century or so ago had been like those of the present, we might have had also a trilogy of Fig...

Nothing could have demonstrated more perfectly the righteousness of Wagner's claim to the title of poet than his acceptance of the Greek theory that a people's legends and myths...

In the preceding chapter it was remarked that Mozart's "Zauberflöte" was the oldest German opera in the current American repertory. Accepting the lists of the last two decades a...

It was the scalawag Schikaneder who had put together the singular dramatic phantasmagoria known as Mozart's "Magic Flute," and acted the part of the buffoon in it, who, having d...

Mozart's "Zauberflöte"--"The Magic Flute"--is the oldest German opera holding a place on the American stage, though not quite 118 years old; but so far as my memory and records...

A vassal is sent to woo a beauteous princess for his lord. While he is bringing her home the two, by accident, drink a love potion, and ever thereafter their hearts are fettered...

A lad, hotfoot in pursuit of a wild swan which one of his arrows has pierced, finds himself in a forest glade on the side of a mountain. There he meets a body of knights and esq...

In the last hundred lines of the last book of his epic poem to which Wagner went for the fundamental incidents, not principles, of his "Parsifal," Wolfram von Eschenbach tells t...

The history of what is popularly called Italian opera begins in the United States with a performance of Rossini's lyrical comedy "Il Barbiere di Siviglia"; it may, therefore, fi...

MM. Michel Carré and Jules Barbier, who made the book for Gounod's opera "Faust," went for their subject to Goethe's dramatic poem. Out of that great work, which had occupied th...

The best definition of the true purpose of comedy which I know is that it is to "chastise manners with a smile" (Ridendo castigat mores); and it has no better exemplification in...

In many respects "Hänsel und Gretel" is the most interesting opera composed since "Parsifal," and, by being an exception, proves the rule to which I directed some remarks in the...

There is no reason to question Gounod's statement that it was he who conceived the idea of writing a Faust opera in collaboration with MM. Barbier and Carré. There was nothing n...

In music the saying that "familiarity breeds contempt," is true only of compositions of a low order. In the case of compositions of the highest order, familiarity generally bree...

Two erroneous impressions concerning Verdi's "Aïda" may as well as not be corrected at the beginning of a study of that opera: it was not written to celebrate the completion of...

In an operatic form Berlioz's "Damnation de Faust" had its first representation in New York at the Metropolitan Opera-house on December 7, 1906. Despite its high imagination, it...

find Margherita strolling arm in arm with Faust, and Martha with Mefistofele. The gossip is trying to seduce the devil into an avowal of love; Margherita and Faust are discussin...

Ethiopians has reached Amneris, whose slaves attire her for the scene of Radames's triumph. The slaves sing of Egypt's victory and of love, the princess of her longing, and Moor...

The oldest Italian operas in the American repertory--Mozart as an influence--What great composers have said about "Don Giovanni,"-- Beethoven--Rossini--Gounod--Wagner--History o...

First performance of Italian opera in the United States--Production of Rossini's opera in Rome, London, Paris, and New York--Thomas Phillipps and his English version--Miss Leesu...

Music in the mediaeval Faust plays--Early operas on the subject-- Meyerbeer and Goethe's poem--Composers of Faust music--Beethoven-- Boito's reverence for Goethe's poem--His wor...

The love story in Gounod's opera--Ancient bondsmen of the devil-- Zoroaster, Democritus, Empedocles, Apollonius, Virgil, Albertus Magnus, Merlin, Paracelsus, Theophilus of Syrac...

The oldest German opera current in America--Beethoven's appreciation of Mozart's opera--Its Teutonism--Otto Jahn's estimate--Papageno, the German Punch--Emanuel Schikaneder--Wie...

The story--The oracle--The musical symbol of Parsifal--Herzeleide-- Kundry--Suffering and lamentation--The bells and march--The eucharistic hymn--The love-feast formula--Faith--...

An opera based on conjugal love--"Fidelio," "Orfeo," and "Alceste"-- Beethoven a Sincere moralist--Technical history of "Fidelio,"--The subject treated by Paër and Gaveaux--Beet...

"Ridendo castigat mores"--Wagner's adherence to classical ideals of tragedy and comedy--The subject of the satire in "Die Meistersinger" --Wagenseil's book on Nuremberg--Plot of...

Familiarity with music and its effects--An experience of the author's--Prelude to Verdi's last act--Expressiveness of some melodies--Verdi, the dramatist--Von Bülow and Mascagni...

Beaumarchais and his Figaro comedies--"Le Nozze" a sequel to "Il Barbiere"--Mozart and Rossini--Their operas compared--Opposition to Beaumarchais's "Marriage de Figaro"--Moral g...

Wolfram von Eschenbach's story of Loherangrin--Other sources of the Lohengrin legend--"Der jüngere Titurel" and "Le Chevalier au Cygne" --The plot of Wagner's opera--A mixture o...

The overture--The plot--A Leitmotif before Wagner--Berlioz and Agathe's air--The song of the Bridesmaids--Wagner and his dying stepfather--The Teutonism of the opera--Facts from...

Popular misconceptions concerning the origin of Verdi's opera--The Suez Canal and Cairo Opera-house--A pageant opera--Local color-- The entombment scene--The commission for the...

The old legend of Tristram and Iseult--Its literary history--Ancient elements--Wagner's ethical changes--How the drama came to be written --Frau Wesendonck--Wagner and Dom Pedro...

Wagner's influence and his successors--Engelbert Humperdinck--Myths and fairy tales--Origin of "Hänsel und Gretel"--First performances-- An application of Wagnerian principles--...

Berlioz's dramatic legend--"A thing of shreds and patches"--Turned into an opera by Raoul Gunsbourg--The composer's "Scenes from Faust" --History of the composition--The Rakoczy...

Wagner and Greek ideals--Methods of Wagnerian study--The story of the opera--Poetical and musical contents of the overture--The bacchanale--The Tannhäuser legend--The historical...