Not content with being a composer and a poet, he wrote two volumes, " The Art Work of the Future " (1849) and " Opera and Drama " (1851), in which he explained the theories which he even then fancied pretty fully conceived. In 1857 he solemnly announced that he was done with theo rizing, and that his plans were absolutely completed. But each time he was mistaken. Their unconscious, inevitable evolution was not to be fully accomplished for many years.
It is not necessary to state that one who sinned so deeply against preconceived notions, should be vigorously hooted and decried. Censure greeted " The Flying Dutch man," in which he began to find himself; the public called " Tannhauser " ugly and blatant and even stopped its ears to the " Song of the Evening Star ;" in " Lohengrin " (a transi tional work), the admiration of a prince who went to such lengths as the construction of a swan barque for his personal navigation failed to bring conviction; the production of the " Ring " caused storms of bitter discussion; when in " Tris tan and Isolde " he at last spoke freely, a tempest of abuse broke upon his head. Now this and his incomparable and only comic opera, " The Mastersingers " (pleasantly greeted by the critics as a " monstrous caterwauling ") are reckoned as his masterpieces, alongside of which nothing else is worthy to stand.
The world was hard to reach but its enthusiasm was unbounded when it at last looked over its " Chinese wall of prejudice." So entirely has it accepted the teachings of the " Musician of the Future " that it amounts to a regeneration of the lyric drama. The present day opera public would not tolerate a composer who did not make an honest effort to let his music embody the poet's thought. There is no more singing of such belligerent admonitions as " Go! or thy blood shall quickly flow " in mellifluous harmony which might well be painting the dreamy loveliness of a summer night. Scarcely a work that has been written since his day does not bear traces of his theories, even the greatest profiting by his example. They have inspired countless vol umes of conjecture, discussion, and laudation. The world is willing to say now that the art for which the Nineteenth Century will doubtless be remembered is the musical and dra matic art of Richard Wagner. Truly, " He doth bestride the narrow world like a Colossus."
However, some there are who have been Wagnerians who have apostatized, and some who look askance at his " muddled metaphysics," and suspect that his orchestration is overpersistent. Whether he is, like Shakespeare, a crea ture great enough to be " not for an age, but for all time," or instead the precursor of some greater one, is for time to tell.
One of the most virile composers of the Nineteenth Century was Giuseppe Verdi, a man of long life and activity and of growth as continual as Wagner's. His progress was marked by four periods of which " I Lombardi " and " Ernani " are of the first; " Il Trovatore " and " Rigoletto " of the second; " Aida " of the third and " Otello " and " Fal staff " of the fourth. This last, his masterpiece, was writ ten at eighty years of age. In technique, Verdi may show evidence of a heritage of faults received from his immediate predecessors, but he brought to Italian opera a new life and vigor. He is truly national, his operas frequently reflecting political conditions and invariably being unmistakably Ital ian. He was one of the greatest of dramatic composers, dealing with the most violent human passions and ever with sincerity. The people have claimed him as their own, which is in itself a sound basis for distinction, and some of the elect declare that his last two works are the best existing models of the lyric drama, not excepting those of Wagner.
The Golden Age of grand opera was followed less than a generation after by the Golden Age of operetta. The chronicle of opera buffa in France and Austria was adorned at that time with such names as Jacques Offenbach (1819 1880), Alexander Lecocq (1832-), Johann Strauss, the waltz king (1804-1849), Robert Planquette (1848-1903), Edmond Audran (1842-1901), and Franz von Suppe (1820 1895), while in England Gilbert and Sullivan were writ ing their delightful series of operettas. The dashing Offen bach brought to the burlesque unusual dignity by bestowing upon it the methods of the serious opera. Rossini called him the Mozart of the Champs Elysees. His immensely popular works are not always models of propriety, but the Second Empire must help to share the blame; just as Rossini was a reflection of the trivial time in which he wrote.