Not until there is a return to the appreciation of simplicity will this music of Bizet be known as the supreme example of music in the domain of melodrama. Meilhac and Halévy in the libretto of “Carmen,” feel constantly the pulse of the audience. The opera is not a sustained masterpiece. The want of action in the third act is not atoned for by a display of musical inspiration. With the exception of the trio of card-players, the music of this act is far below that of the other three. But, with the omission of this act, how frank, how intense, how characteristic, is the music that tells of a tragedy of universal and eternal interest. For _Carmen_ lived years before she was known by Merimée. She dies many deaths, and many are her resurrections. When the world was young, they say her name was Lilith, and the serpent for her sake hated Adam. She perished that wild night when the heavens rained fire upon the Cities of the Plain. Samson knew her when she dwelt in the valley of Sorek. The mound builders saw her and fell at her feet. She disquieted the blameless men of Ethiopia. Years after she was the friend of Theodora. In the fifteenth century she was noticed in Sabbatic revels led by the four-horned goat. She was in Paris at the end of the last century, and she wore powder and patches at the dinners given by the Marquis de Sade. In Spain she rolled cigarettes and wrecked the life of _Don José_. The dramatic genius of Bizet is seen fully in his treatment of this character. She sings no idle words. Each tone stabs. There are here no agreeable or sensuous love passages; as Bellaigue remarks, there is not a touch of voluptuousness in the opera. The soldier is under the spell of a vain, coarse, reckless gipsy of maddening personality. He knows the folly, the madness of his passion; he sees “as from a tower the end of all.” These characters are sharply drawn and forcibly painted. There is free use of the palette knife; there is fine and ingenious detail. The singers sing because it is the natural expression of their emotions; they do not sing to amuse the audience or accommodate the stage carpenter. The orchestra with wealth of rhythm and color italicizes the song; prepares the action; accompanies it; or moralizes. Apart from the technical skill shown in the instrumentation, the great ability of Bizet is seen in his combining the French traditions of the past and the German spirit of the present without incongruity. Here is a departure from old models, and yet a confirmation. The quintet is sung because thereby the feeling of the scene is best expressed; five people are not introduced because the quintet is an agreeable combination of voices. The unmeaning vocal ornaments found in the earlier operas of Bizet have disappeared. He uses his own manly, intense speech. He expresses his own thoughts in his own way. He does not care whether his work is opéra comique or grand opera, or melodrama. His sole object is to tell his