It is as though opera had to dress according to the prevailing fashion of the day. The very large sleeves of one year look strange to us a little later. Just so is it with opera; for those old operas by Mehul, Spontini, Salieri, and others all wear enormous crinolines, while the contemporary instrumental works of the same period, unfettered by fashion, still possess all the freedom which their limited speech permitted them to have. Thus we see that opera is necessarily a child of the times in which it is written, in contrast to other music which echoes but the thought of the composer, thought that is not necessarily bound down to any time, place, or peculiarity of diction. In Germany, Italian opera was never accepted by the people as it was in France. In the latter country, opera had to be in the vernacular and practically to become _French_. Lully's operas were written to libretti by Quinault and Corneille; and while, as early as 1645, Paris imported its opera from Italy, this art form was rapidly modified to suit the public for which it was secured. Even with Piccini and Gluck, and down to Rossini and Meyerbeer, this nationalism was infused into the foreign product. In Germany the case was entirely different, for up to the very last, Italian opera was a thing apart. Although German composers, such as Mozart and Paer, wrote Italian opera, the "Singspiel" (a kind of opera comique), found its culminating point in Weber's "Freischuetz," which fought against Rossini's operas for supremacy in Germany. Gluck's victory over the Piccinists gave to the French form of Italian opera an impetus that caused Cherubini to proceed on almost the same lines in his operas, the "Water Carrier," etc. Cherubini was a pupil of Andreas Sarti, a celebrated contrapuntist and a disciple of the last of the Italian church composers who looked back to Palestrina for inspiration. Thus the infusion of a certain soberness of diction, which we call German, fitted in with the man's training and predilections. The first names we meet with in French opera after Cherubini are those of Gretry, Mehul, and Spontini. The former was a Frenchman whose works are now obsolete, although Macfarren, in the "Encyclopedia Brittanica," says that he is the only French composer of symphonies that are known and enjoy popularity in France. Gretry was born in Liege, about 1740. He walked to Italy, studied in Rome, and returned to France about 1770. None of his works have come down to us, but his name is interesting by reason of a certain contradiction in his operas. This contradiction consists in his being one of the first to revive the idea of the hidden orchestra; it is interesting also to note that in his "Richard Coeur de Lion," he anticipated Wagner's use of the _leitmotiv_. His words on the hidden orchestra sound strangely modern: