Grand opera, however, is associated with the name of Meyerbeer, in whom a transcendent love of pageantry was strangely combined with a personal frugality which amounted almost to niggardliness. Such pomp and fan fare and splendid processions, such a wealth of scenic and orchestral effect had been conceived by no forerunner. The world had never seen anything as daring as his " Robert the Devil;" as spectacular as his " Prophet," as thrilling and melodramatic as his " Huguenots." France was so dazzled that she did not realize that the national opera was drifting far away from the pure, virile style of Gluck. The founda tions upon which Meyerbeer raised his tremendous struc tures were not as broad and strong as they needed to be. He was too prone to strive for the purely effective. He was praised to the skies during his lifetime and has been under rated since. It has for years been the fashion to " find him out ;" delight is taken in calling him the charlatan of French opera; but however full of faults he may have been, he is master of dramatic effect, and he did service by loosening the rigid bonds of traditional form.
The Nineteenth Century was full of activity.' Names not at all epoch-making were, in France, Ferdinand Boiel dieu (1775-1834), whose " La Dame Blanche " was for many years the ever cited classical example of opera comique; Adolphe Adam (1803-1856) ; Victor Masse (1822-1884) ; Leo Delibes (1836-1891) ; E. Lalo (1823-1892) ; Charles Gounod (1818-1893), famed for his perennial "Faust:" Georges Bizet (1838-1875), known best for his inspired "Carmen." and Ambroise Thomas (1811-1896).
In Germany, in this brief consideration, we must men tion Conradin Kreutzer (1780-1849), Otto Nicolai (1810 1849), Gustav Lortzing (1801-1851) and Frederick Flotow (1812-1883). In England, the fate of opera lay in the hands of William Vincent Wallace (1814-1865), Michael Balfe (1808-1870) — his " Bohemian Girl " being probably the most popular of modern ballad operas — and Sir Julius Benedict (1804-1885).
The middle of the Nineteenth Century is remarkable for the appearance of the most important figure in all the three hundred years of opera—Richard Wagner—who was destined to be a reformer like Gluck, whom he resembles in many respects, chief among them being that he was a good fighter and terribly in earnest. Also, like Gluck, his youth was not without its mistakes. Of these, " Rienzi," written in frank imitation of Meyerbeer (by one who afterward was shown to be the most original of men), is the only one worthy of more than a cursory mention. After its produc tion, the young German sallied forth to Paris, where Lully, Gluck, Piccini, Cherubini, Spontini, Rossini, Meyerbeer, Donizetti and the rest of them had gone before him, with high hopes of seeing some of his works produced, and with Meyerbeer's letters of introduction in his pocket. But Paris was cold. She did not realize that he had come; all of which was very fortunate for Wagner as well as for the world, Paris included. Had he received a welcome such as Rossini had enjoyed, it is more than likely that he would have been content to pursue a lucrative career, composing upon the approved conventional lines, and adding many other " Rienzis " to the " whole clinking, twinkling, glitter ing, glistening show — Grand Opera," as he was later pleased to designate the style then in vogue. But his was a soul
which the buffetings of Fortune did not subdue, but instead engendered therein a wholesome spirit of defiance. To the same good end worked his exile in Switzerland, which resulted upon the political troubles of 1848. With the world lost anyhow, he might well write as he pleased. And so he grew steadily, each succeeding opera being an advance upon its predecessors, and a fuller embodiment of the theo ries which took practical shape in the great cycle, and reached their highest expression in " Tristan and Isolde." He would have none of the feeble librettos which other composers of the day accepted. He was convinced that " Orpheus' lute was strung with poet's sinews," and to make sure of the quality of the poetry he wrote it himself. He went back, not to Gluck, but as far as 1600, discarding every dramatic tradition which had accumulated in that time, but with the immeasurable advantage over Peri of more than two centuries' development of technique. In truth, he did away with the opera and created a complete organic union, the music drama.
Among the most important of his theories is that the music should be secondary to the drama whose emotional import it should faithfully reflect and intensify, the relation of the poetry to the music being as that of a sketch to the color. He believed it to be essential that the libretto should be worthy, or, of necessity, the music which was built upon it could not be. He claimed that a composer should write his own drama in order that he might be more fully in sympathy with it. Believing that the music should not break or interrupt the action, he did away with all arias, duets, concerted finales and ensembles (with a very few exceptions, notable among which is the opening of Act III in " The Valkyrie "), deeming these unnatural and inartistic. He made use of a melos, or, as it has been variously defined, an endless recitative, a musical declamation, a speech-song, which could be made either melodic or harmonic. He made use of the leading motive, which is a characteristic melody or musical phase, associated with a particular personage and accompanying him throughout the score. He treated the leading motive more consistently and with far greater effect than had any of his occasional predecessors. In his later works, the score is a veritable web, woven out of these vari ous motives. He made a symphonic use of the orchestra, his employment of the leading motive enabling him to give a running commentary on the action, like the chorus in the ancient Greek tragedy, which could refer to past circum stances in the life of the character or even paint his inmost thoughts. In short, he made of the music drama, a form as truly artistic as the symphony or sonata and worthy to take its place beside these unimpeachable forms of abstract music.