The oldest Italian operas in the American repertory--Mozart as an influence--What great composers have said about "Don Giovanni,"-- Beethoven--Rossini--Gounod--Wagner--History of the opera--Da Ponte's pilferings--Bertati and Gazzaniga's "Convitato di Pietra"--How the overture to "Don Giovanni" was written--First performances of the opera in Prague, Vienna, London, and New York--Garcia and Da Ponte --Malibran--English versions of the opera--The Spanish tale of Don Juan Tenorio--Dramatic versions--The tragical note in the overture --The plot of the opera--Gounod on the beautiful in Mozart's music --Leporello's catalogue--"Batti, batti o bel Masetto"--The three dances in the first finale--The last scene--Mozart quotes from his contemporaries--The original close of the opera. Chapter V "Fidelio" An opera based on conjugal love--"Fidelio," "Orfeo," and "Alceste"-- Beethoven a Sincere moralist--Technical history of "Fidelio,"--The subject treated by Paër and Gaveaux--Beethoven's commission--The first performance a failure--A revision by the composer's friends-- The second trial--Beethoven withdraws his opera--A second revision --The revival of 1814--Success at last--First performances in London and New York--The opera enriched by a ballet--Plot of "Fidelio"-- The first duet--The canon quartet--A dramatic trio--Milder-Hauptmann and the great scena--Florestan's air--The trumpet call--The opera's four overtures--Their history. Chapter VI "Faust" The love story in Gounod's opera--Ancient bondsmen of the devil-- Zoroaster, Democritus, Empedocles, Apollonius, Virgil, Albertus Magnus, Merlin, Paracelsus, Theophilus of Syracuse,--The myth-making capacity--Bismarck and the needle-gun--Printing, a black art--Johann Fust of Mayence--The veritable Faust--Testimony of Luther and Melanchthon--The literary history of Dr. Faustus--Goethe and his predecessors--Faust's covenant with Mephistopheles--Dr. Faustus and matrimony--The Polish Faust--The devil refuses to marry Madame Twardowska--History of Gounod's opera--The first performance-- Popularity of the opera--First productions in London and New York-- The story--Marguerite and Gretchen--The jewel song--The ballet. Chapter VII "Mefistofele" Music in the mediaeval Faust plays--Early operas on the subject-- Meyerbeer and Goethe's poem--Composers of Faust music--Beethoven-- Boito's reverence for Goethe's poem--His work as a poet--A man of mixed blood--"Mefistofele" a fiasco in Milan--The opera revised-- Boito's early ambitions--Disconnected episodes--Philosophy of the opera--Its scope--Use of a typical phrase--The plot--Humors of the English translation--Music of the prologue--The Book of Job--Boito's metrical schemes--The poodle and the friar--A Polish dance in the Rhine country--Gluck and Vestris--The scene on the Brocken--The Classical Sabbath--Helen of Troy--A union of classic and romantic art--First performance of Boito's opera in America, (footnote). Chapter VIII "La Damnation de Faust"