Let a few names Glinka (ISO-1-571. (1513-r191. SkolT (1519-i11. Ru binstein ( 1529-941, Cilsa r Viii ( 1535-1. Tschai kowsky (1S40-931. Borodin (1531-8i1. and Rim skv-Korsakoff (1544-1. Few of their are Beard outside of Russia.
England makes sporadic to breed native composers, and et cry- now and again suc ceeds in producing sonic operatic novelty which dies immediately or after its appearance in a world of which Wagner is still lord. After the Handel invasion England contented itself with imitative Italian opera and English ballad opera, Arne (1710-78), Bishop (1781;-1855),.101111 Barnett ( 1802-90 ) , 13:iffy ( 1808-70 ) , Wallace, ( 1814-65 ) , Benedict ( 1804-85 ), INIacfarren ( 1813 87). Goring Thomas (1851-92). and Arthur Sul livan (1842-1902), bring the list to the promi nent ones of the younger school: Stanford. Cowen, Alackenzie, .)lacCulin, Pc Lara, Bunning, and Ethel Smyth. Some of their works have been fostered by heal pride and have gained notoriety—there is scarcely a masterpiece among them. The cleverest one of the modern English composers, Sullivan, gave the best of himself to comic opera, in which line he achieved interna tional reputation. England is far behind Italy, Germany, and France in the quality of its native operas produced, and its future seems unpromis ing enough to discourage any musical optimist. In the United States the field of serious opera has been plowed, but the harvest time is not yet.
Of so-called comic operas—with a few honorable exceptions—which in the United States have de gunerated into musical farces—there is no end to their number and no limit to the poorness of their quality. It seems safe to assert that the world's history of opera closed for the present with the last work of Verdi. Since then operas have been either experiments or imitations of the good that has gone before.
BintiocaAeny. Cl6ment and Larousse, Dic tiannaire lyrigur, ou Histoi-re des op6ras ( Paris, 1869-77) : Iteynard, La renaissance du dram(' lyrigue 1600-1876: essai de dramaturgic musi cale (Paris, 1S95) ; Apthorp, The Opera Past and Present (New York, 1901) ; llansliek, Am En de des Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 1899) ; Bru Mira/Tics d'hier et de domain ( Paris, 11100) ; llenderson, The Story of Musie (New York, 1891) ; Elson, .1 Critical History of Opera (Bos ton, 1901) ; Newman, Cluck and the Opera don, 1895) ; Sonhies and 51alherbe, Hisioirr de l'Opdra•Comiqae (Paris, 1R92) ; Streatfield, The Opera (London. 1901) ; Upton, The Standard Operas (Chicago, 1891) ; Krehbiel, Studies in the Wagner Drama (New York, 1891). See Music—Sellouts u>•' COMPOSITION ; and the sep arate biographies of the composers mentioned. The following list comprises merely some of the more important grand and light operas. Frequent ly the same libretto served a number of com posers, in which case only the more important names are mentioned: