The HTML version of this text produced by Bob Frone can be found at <http://www.intac.com/~rfrone/operas/Books/oper-books.htm> Plain text adaption by Andrew Sly. A BOOK OF OPERAS THEIR HISTORIES, THEIR PLOTS, AND THEIR MUSIC BY HENRY EDWARD KREHBIEL TO LUGIEN WULSIN AN OLD FRIEND "Old friends are best."--SELDEN. "I love everything that's old,--old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine."--GOLDSMITH. "Old wood to burn! Old wine to drink! Old friends to trust! Old authors to read!"--MELCHIOR. CONTENTS Chapter I "Il Barbiere di Siviglia" First performance of Italian opera in the United States--Production of Rossini's opera in Rome, London, Paris, and New York--Thomas Phillipps and his English version--Miss Leesugg and Mrs. Holman--Emanuel Garcia and his troupe--Malibran--Early operas in America--Colman's "Spanish Barber"--Other Figaro operas--How Rossini came to Write "Il Barbiere" --The story of a fiasco--Garcia and his Spanish song--"Segui, o caro" --Giorgi-Righetti--The plot of the opera--The overture--"Ecco ridente in cielo"--"Una voce poco fà,"--Rossini and Patti--The lesson scene and what singers have done with it--Grisi, Alboni, Catalani, Bosio, Gassier, Patti, Sembrich, Melba, and Viardot--An echo of Haydn. Chapter II "Le Nozze di Figaro" Beaumarchais and his Figaro comedies--"Le Nozze" a sequel to "Il Barbiere"--Mozart and Rossini--Their operas compared--Opposition to Beaumarchais's "Marriage de Figaro"--Moral grossness of Mozart's opera--A relic of feudalism--Humor of the horns--A merry overture --The story of the opera--Cherubino,--"Non so più cosa son"-- Benucci and the air "Non più andrai"--"Voi che sapete"--A marvellous finale--The song to the zephyr--A Spanish fandango--"Deh vieni non tardar." Chapter III "Die Zauberflöte" The oldest German opera current in America--Beethoven's appreciation of Mozart's opera--Its Teutonism--Otto Jahn's estimate--Papageno, the German Punch--Emanuel Schikaneder--Wieland and the original of the story of the opera--How "Die Zanberflöte" came to be written--The story of "Lulu"--Mozart and freemasonry--The overture to the opera-- The fugue theme and a theme from a sonata by Clementi--The opera's play--"O Isis und Osiris"--"Hellish rage" and fiorituri--The song of the Two Men in Armor--Goethe and the libretto of "Die Zauberflöte"-- How the opera should be viewed. Chapter IV "Don Giovanni"