Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) wrote many works for the stage, of which these were the principal: "Bastien et Bastienne," operetta, one act (1768), "La Finta semplice," opera buffa (1766), "Mitridate, Re di Ponto," opera (1770), "Lucio Silla," opera (1772), "Idomeneo," opera seria (1781), "Die Entführung aus dem Serail," comic opera (1782), "Le Nozze di Figaro," opera buffa (1786), "Don Giovanni," opera buffa (1787), and "Die Zauberflöte," opera seria (1791). Mozart's earliest works and, indeed, some of his later works, which I have not mentioned, were in the strictest Italian style. "Don Giovanni," too, is essentially Italian, and is seldom well performed by Germans. But in all Mozart's dramatic works there is a German spirit, manifested not so much in the style of the music, perhaps, as in the entire sincerity of its character. Mozart made no revolution in operatic forms, and because of that it is by no means easy to define the improvements which he made in the art of the German lyric stage. Yet it is indisputable that before Mozart there was no distinctive school of German opera, and that since his day there has always been one. "Die Entführung aus dem Serail," often called by its Italian title "Il Seraglio," was Mozart's first attempt at a German work, but the general plan and style follow the Italian opera of the time. What Mozart achieved was the introduction of a more definite and sincere expressiveness in the arias. In "Le Nozze di Figaro" Mozart's music is marvellous in its adaptation to the comic action of the play, and in its suitability to the characters of the various persons. There is absolutely nothing new in the forms or the general plan. The outline is all Italian; the coloring is all Mozart's. And it has that peculiar German solidity which comes from the tendency of the people to get to the bottom of things. Superficiality is opposed to the German nature. It was the fatal weakness of Italian opera. Mozart went below the surface in his "Figaro." A musical feature of this work and of "Don Giovanni," noted by Dr. Parry, is the way in which the composer "often knits together a number of movements into a continuous series, especially at the end of the act. This was the way in which complete assimilation of the musical factors into a composite whole was gradually approached." In "Die Zauberflöte" Mozart again followed Italian forms, but there is a profundity of thought in some parts of the work wholly foreign to all Italian conceptions of beauty. I am unable, however, to find ground for preferring this work to "Don Giovanni," as many writers do. To my mind "Don Giovanni," is not only the greatest of Mozart's works, but of all works in the old form. It was written in the prime of the classical period, before Weber had revolutionized with "Der Freischütz" the German conception of opera, and before Beethoven had become at once the culmination of the classic and the prophet of the romantic school. It