We have now reached the musical Finale of the first act, though there is much shifting of scenes and characters before the last grand _ensemble_, which is the ball in the Don’s palace. But these only suspend, to wonderfully enhance, the final stroke. We can only enumerate the delicious series of ever new and characteristic musical ideas preliminary to the feast: (1.) Masetto urging Zerlina to hide herself—how full of the bustle of approaching splendors is the music during this little hurried duett! (2.) The Don’s voice stimulating the peasants to the coming mirth, with their responsive chorus. (3.) Then his discovery of the shy bird and half reclaimal of her love, with his blank surprise (so perfectly depicted in the sudden modulation of the music) as he leads her off only to meet the watchful bridegroom: _Masetto si, Masetto_! (during all which the light twittering phrases of the accompaniment make the whole atmosphere instinct with joys expected.) (4.) Then, as the instruments suddenly change to a cautious, half-hushed, tip-toe melody, unflagging in its speed, yet in the minor mood, (for these have no festivity in their hearts that now come) the entrance of Donna Elvira, Donna Anna, and Don Ottavio, in black dominos, and masked to the outward eye, though each betrayed by a distinctive style of melody. (5.) Then the sounding (from within the house) of that stately _minuett_, a strain which everybody knows and loves, and still as fresh as when first written, here introduced as a mere foretaste of itself, and of the ball, and made the musical ground-work of lordly courtesy and hospitality to the salutations of Don Juan and Leporello, who appear above at the window, and invite the maskers in. (6.) The surpassing Trio, in which the three, lingering on the threshold, invoke Heaven’s protection to innocence ensnared. Can any other opera show such an exuberance of musical ideas in the same space? And it is all _en passant_, all incidental to what follows, to what now bursts instantly upon the view as the back scene is withdrawn, and you see all the crowd and splendor of the ball-room, and are transported by the indescribably rich Finale, that ever climbing, widening _crescendo_ and accumulation of all musical effects, till the climax is reached in a general storm and inundation of harmony. The simple, gay, continuous six-eight melody, to which the whole brilliant spectacle moves at first, is the very soul of festivity. Suddenly there is a full chord in C from the whole orchestra, with trumpets, and a stately, march-like strain, preluding the entrance of the three in masks, with the lordly welcome of the Amphytrion. He will have no time lost, however, for into this one high hour he has concentrated all the delights and harmonies of sense—short, bright and strong be the blood-quickening chorus, _Viva la liberta!_ and now let the dance go on. And now are crowded into a brief but most