The Arkansaw traveler., 1885-03-14
OPERA IN GERMANY, ITALY,
 AND ENGLAND.
lL.oasion rimes.l

ttuuSS SV C&St us noA01W uM S1S EttNtt& " his couutrymen as did that of tseethoven fifty years ago, and that of Handel at a a still earlier period, when the arrival Of the Saxon master in this country killed in the bud the hopeful growth of an English school of music, founded by Pur. cell and the composers of the restoration period The economy of nature seems te require period of rest aileF . great ge- nius has been produced, The rules of this alternation of fiood-tide and e6o-tide in the affairs of art may be watched At present in Germany. Wagner has thor oughly aprooted the opera in the old fashioned acceptance of the word, and has in his own works established basis of musico-dTamatic expression for future generations to build upon. AS yet, how ever, none ot his disciples have proved strong enough to handle the tools em- ployed by the master, or to bend the bow of Odysseus. The consequence Is tha, among the numerous German operas produced on the Wagnerian model there Wagner's genius They arc. as rule, highly competent works, avoiding the absurdities of the earlier forms of opera, and striving for dramatic significance {; but not one is instinct with that vital element of genuine and spontaneous melody with which Wagner was pre- emiuentiy endowed and without which his reformatory efforts would be dr- and unprofitable theory. Raiders interested ia the type of opera above indicated must still be referred to Goldmark's Konigin von Saba" as it's most successful speci- men.
 X Italy, the era He of music, has for a long time past ceased to hold leading position among musical nations. lt Is true that production there Is as fertile as ever, and the past year has witnessed the birth of no less than thirty-eight Italian operas. both serious and comic. To judge by previous experience, one may we'll be doubtful whether many or any of these will outlive the stage of infancy represented by the skagi0ne for which they were written. An exception should be made in favor of Vcrdis Don Car. los" rewritten and reduced to four acts which is included in the number above referred to. It was produced in it's new form at the Scala theatre, Milan, in Ian- uary last, and received with great favor. Of Verdis new opera "lago,' on which he has been at work for many years, nothing has been heard. Some say that the score is finished; others, speaking
 with equal authority, declare that not . note is on paper. The master himself preserves silence. The same atmosphere of mystery and contradictory rumor sur rounds another work on which the i'm. mediate future of Italian opera may be said largely to depend. This is Ne. rone," by Arrigo Boito, the author of Mehstofele." Like Verdi's "Iago," Cor which, by the way, Signor Boite has sup piled the libretto, "Nerone" has been long and anxiously expected. We can speak of the drama written by the com. poser himself as designed on the grand est scale and full of dramatic situations {; those who have seen parts Of the score declare that the music Is equally fine, Why Signor Boito hesitates 10 give such work to the world Is more than we can say. Perhaps the year 1885 will elucidate the point It is significant fact that one of the mos, important events in musical
 Italy, which the immediate past has wit.
 messed, Is the production in the Italian capital of Wagner's Loheugrin," of the
 brilliant success of which our Rome cor respondent gave full account some days ago The opera itself is not new to Italy. It was produced at Bologna many years ago, and received with great enthusiasm. But Bologna Is known to be the centre of advanced ideas in
 literature and art. Here the leaders of the modern schosi of Italian poetry, known as the veyisn, reside, and here also the music of the future was likely to find its first and warmest admirers.
 For the same reason a success at Bologna is by no means safe augury for suc- cess at Milan or at Florence. But Rome is different. There, in spite of the arden, labors of Sgsmbati and a few of the younger musicians, the taste of the gen. eral public lies In the oid-fashioned grooves, and the success of Lohengrin 1" shoSs that the beauty of its music and of its drama has at last conquered the ob- stacles opposed to Wagner's art by ieai. ousy, naiiona! pEejad.ce, and the vested interests of publishers in Italy and else where. Certain it is that if Italian opera is to rise once more from its decsyed state it must be through means of the Ni iahhahI PituSipiS auvOCdteu Uy wagner, and successfully applied to their native art by Verdi in his Aida and by Boi,o in his Mehstofele."
 The decline of Italian opera has not been confined to that country alone. OfI the disastrous season ct Covent Garden we shall speak further on. In Paris, also, the fate of the Theatre Italien, over which M: Maurel, the excellent baritone, pre- sides, is trembling in the balance. That the hackneyed repertoire of Beilini and Donizetti fails to attract any longer M. Maurei is well aware. and he has, there fore, hit upon the expcdient of producing such wsrks by French composers as would have little chance of admission ct the Grand Opera in an Italian disguise. IL was in these circumstances that "Aben Hamet," composed by ii. Theodore Ds- bois to Italian words, was recently pro- duced. This triumph of national art was duly extollcd by Pafisian critics hut l