This opera comes in all respects within the rules of the existing opera seria. Musical etiquette is strictly adhered to; the principal and secondary parts are divided in the usual way; the secondary parts are easier (not always simpler), and their character is tamer and less important, so that they may act as foils and connecting links to the principal parts. The chief singers had to be furnished with opportunities for making effect as soon as they appeared; and must have at least one great aria in each act. All this is carefully provided for. The compass and executive skill of the artists, more especially of Bernasconi and d' Ettore, must have been extraordinary. The division of the aria into two movements, which prevails here as elsewhere, favours the elaboration of details by affording more than one principal subject. We must not expect to find a uniform florid song, the ornamental passages growing out of and entwining the chief melody, like an architectural ornamentation; they form an integral part of the composition. The taste in such passages is essentially {MOZART'S EARLY OPERAS.} (176) fleeting, for it depended chiefly on the skill of the individual performer; what is most admired in one age is least pleasing to the next. The same dismemberment made itself apparent too, in the cantilene. The various vocal tricks, long notes, sustained melodies, long jumps, syncopated passages, &c., to which due effect had to be given, could not be thrown together without some connecting principle. For this the subjects of the songs were made use of, but the effect was still disjointed and inartistic. The detached phrases were usually still further separated by a full or a half cadenza, to which an instrumental interlude was often attached. No doubt this wealth of variety was then considered a great charm; now we miss unity of form and conception. The turns of harmony are generally monotonous and poor, the form of the cadenza with its trills is just as stereotyped as that of the present day with its suspended sixth, and both the singer and the public expected and required that this should be so. No doubt the freedom which was allowed to the singer in delivery often gave quite a different form to the cadenza, but the want of conception could at best but be concealed.