Such operas as we have described could, on account of the expense, only be given at royal courts on special occasions; but the general public soon began to demand a share in the entertainment and a regular repetition of it. It became the established custom to make the opera the main festivity of the Carnival, and although generous patrons were not wanting, prepared to support the managers (_impresarii_), yet the latter, who naturally wished to make a profit by the opera, generally found it necessary to reduce the cost of the representations. The libretti, which sought to excite interest by showy scenery, and a mixture of pathetic and burlesque situations, without the least regard to consistency or psychological accuracy, were far from satisfactory to any cultivated taste. But the cultivation of the art of song exercised the highest of all influences on operatic music. It had reached a height from which it was able to govern the musical public, and to render the pleasure of the eye subservient to that of the ear. In proportion as the vocal art asserted its superiority, it exacted a simplification of all other means of attraction, and the universal striving after regularity was materially assisted by the necessity for clear and decided forms in vocal music. This transformation of the opera, which took its final form from poet and composer under the quickening influence of great singers, is commonly ascribed to Alessandro Scarlatti (1659-1725). He was the disciple, although perhaps not the pupil, of the Roman kapellmeister, Giacomo Carissimi (who was nearly ninety in 1672), who did such good service to the development of recitative and dramatic solo singing, that he may be considered the founder of modern song. Scarlatti, excellent alike from his thorough musical {OPERA SERIA.} (158)