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The Mentor, No. 47, Makers of Modern Opera




MAKERS OF MODERN OPERA

_By_ H. E. KREHBIEL

_Author and Music Critic_

[Illustration: WAGNER]

[Illustration: VERDI]

THE MENTOR

SERIAL No. 47

[Illustration]

DEPARTMENT OF FINE ARTS

    MENTOR GRAVURES

    VERDI · MASSENET · PUCCINI · STRAUSS · GOUNOD · HUMPERDINCK


The form of entertainment called opera had its origin a little more
than three centuries ago in an effort made by a company of scholars and
musical amateurs in Florence to rescue music from the artificiality
into which the composers, who were all churchmen, had forced it.

The Florentine group had convinced themselves by study that music
had been effectively linked with poetry and action in the Greek
stage-plays, and in striving to imitate these they created the art-form
which in time came to be called “opera”--though at first it was known
by names all more or less closely connected with the terms which the
composers of today use to describe their dramatic works,--lyric dramas,
musical dramas, and so forth. The new style quickly spread over Europe,
and inasmuch as Italy was the home of music, it retained for a time
the Italian language and the style of musical composition evolved
by its creators. Soon other nations, impelled by a desire to hear
the new lyric plays, began to translate the Italian books into their
own languages. This brought with it a recognition of the incongruity
between Italian music and the French, German, and English languages,
and the dramatic poets and musicians of these countries began to seek
more satisfactory idioms in which to express their ideals. Thus there
came into existence the three great schools of operatic composers whose
latterday representatives are here considered.

[Illustration: GAETANO DONIZETTI]

Two men mark the point of departure of the lyric drama of today from
the general style which characterized opera all the world over during
the first two centuries following its invention. They are Verdi
(vair-dee), the Italian, and Wagner (vahg´-ner), the German; and,
strangely enough, they were both born in 1813. The latter exercised an
influence which was universal, and Verdi fell under it.

[Illustration: GIOACHINO ROSSINI]


THE GLORY OF VERDI

But neither in precept nor in practice was the great Italian brought
to disavow the native genius of his people. That is the great glory of
Verdi. For decade after decade he kept