Before his time the orchestra, as a means of dramatic expression and coloring, was not appreciated, although Gluck pointed out the way. Under Mozart it became more symphonic and massive in character. The solo instruments became refined organs of feeling, giving color and sensuous beauty to the vocal parts. The orchestration intensified the dramatic fire of the scene from beginning to end. In his operas every feeling of the heart finds utterance. A divine harmony and classic purity of form distinguish his dramatic music, as, indeed, all his music, from the little minuets which he composed as a child to his last operas and symphonies. During the time of Gluck and Mozart the German operetta came into existence. Mozart’s “Entführung” (Belmont and Constanza) is the noblest example of this style. This new form of musical drama was suggested by the French comic opera. It adopted the spoken dialogue for the less dramatic moments of the play. It resembled, however, the French operetta only externally, and soon developed a genuine German character. This new species of musical play sought to do that which the brilliant and conventional Italian opera could not accomplish, namely, interest the great masses of the people. This was at first possible only through inartistic exaggeration of the realities of life, and by the introduction of humorous elements of a distinctly coarse kind. But the general demand for musical plays of this class gradually attracted to their composition writers of real musical and dramatic ability. Johann Adam Hiller (1728–1804) was the first German who became prominent as a composer of operettas. “Lottchen at Court,” “Rustic Affection,” and “The Hunt” are his principal operettas. The last named was given not less than forty times during a short theatre season in Berlin in 1771. Even before this time the operetta had become so generally popular that a writer had had occasion to remark that tragedies and legitimate comedies were being driven to the wall. Yet there was one serious obstacle to the operetta’s rapid artistic development. The good singers were monopolized by theatres giving Italian opera, and operetta managers had to take what was left.