=Characteristics of Rossini’s Operas=.—They are, on the whole, a _reversion_ to the conventionalized opera of Handel’s time in being written for the singer to exhibit his art and not to express the significance of the drama; this notwithstanding their undoubted charm, the many piquant and original touches in rhythm and harmony, the occasional suggestive instrumentation. An intensely _florid style_ is used not only in the _buffa_ school where it can readily be justified, but in operas of a tragic nature where it is manifestly out of place. In _Semiramide_, for instance, a story of battle, murder and sudden death is told in the same rippling rhythms and highly ornamented melodies that illustrate the intrigues of his _Barbiere di Siviglia_ (Barber of Seville), where they are eminently appropriate. =His Change of Style=.—This is true, however, only of his works composed for the Italian stage. His _Guillaume Tell_ (William Tell), produced in 1829, five years after his arrival in Paris, showed the influence of his new environment by an almost startling change of style. Elevated and dramatic in treatment, shorn of redundant ornament as befits the character of the subject—taken from Schiller’s play of the same name—it remains his greatest achievement; at least in serious opera. It was also his last work for the stage. It is not known by what strange caprice he practically closed his career as composer at the age of thirty-nine. REFERENCE. Oxford History of Music, Vol. V. QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS. Name the most prominent successor of Gluck in opera. Compare the two. Describe the Singspiel. Name some of Mozart’s operas. Mention their characteristics and influence. Give an account of Beethoven’s work in Opera. Tell about Salieri, Cherubini, Spontini, Rossini. Give the characteristics of Rossini’s operas. What change in his style is evident in “William Tell”? We now approach the period preceding the American and the French Revolutions which so greatly affected the masses of Europe, an influence extended by the wars of Napoleon. Music shows traces of the powerful forces at work, losing the former artificiality and becoming more and more, in the hands of Beethoven, an expression of dramatic and personal feeling. LESSON XXIV. THE ORATORIO.