What two styles are found in French opera? Tell about the origin of Opéra Comique. Tell about the development of Opéra Comique. Describe the typical opéra comique. Mention the prominent composers in this form and their work. Describe Opéra Bouffe. What composers were prominent in this form? What was the influence of the Opéra Comique? What was the established form of Grand Opéra? Who contributed to a change of style? What were the changes? Give an account of Meyerbeer and his work in Opera. What was his influence? LESSON XXXIX. THE ITALIAN SCHOOL OF THE XIXTH CENTURY. =Later Italian School=.—While Meyerbeer was dominating the French stage and through it exerting a powerful influence on serious opera in all countries, the Italian school was recovering in part from the impulse given it by Rossini. The highly ornamented style which he brought into vogue was modified in the works of several composers who also gave more consideration to truth of expression. With these, melody still reigned supreme, but it was shorn of the excessive ornamentation which overloaded Rossini’s music; in character and rhythm it was also more generally in accord with sentiment and situation. The florid element was by no means suppressed; it had been an integral factor in Italian music for two centuries and was too strongly entrenched in public favor to be banished so completely as it had been in the German romantic opera, but it was kept in subordination and in the main not allowed to dictate the melodic idea. This was a step in advance for the Italian school of that period, which through the fluent warblings of Rossini and his imitators, had approached dangerously near the Scarlatti-Handel type of the previous century. =Donizetti=.—This reaction in the direction of greater simplicity and sincerity was led by =Gaetano Donizetti= (1797-1848). At first a follower of Rossini, he only attained success after the latter had ceased composing and he himself had acquired a style of his own. Donizetti was not without innate force, but his great melodic facility led him to rely upon melody rather than upon musical development or dramatic characterization. Hence his tragic operas, though often admirable in detail, lack the sustained strength demanded by their subjects. Of these, _Lucia_ (founded upon Scott’s “Bride of Lammermoor”) achieved the greatest popularity, while in _La Favorita_ (composed for the Grand Opéra) he shows more dramatic power than in any of his more than three-score operas. In many of his lighter works he is particularly happy; for example, in _Don Pasquale_, which compares favorably with Rossini’s _Il Barbiere_, and in _L’Elisire d’Amore_ (The Elixir of Love). _La Fille du Régiment_ (The Daughter of the Regiment—written for the Opéra Comique) has made the tour of the world.