"We must remember," says Reichardt, in his "History of the Comic Opera," "how much Hiller was hampered by the miserable state of our operatic companies. He was fully aware of this, and what I admire in him is that he never lost sight of the fact that he was writing, not for singers, but for actors, who had scarcely music enough in them to sing over their wine." The state of things had not altered much since Hiller began to write. The Italian operas alone were supported by the courts; the German operettas remained in the hands of private speculators; who did not possess the means of attracting vocalists of artistic cultivation. No singer of any reputation would have thought it consistent with his dignity to appear in German vaudeville. The vaudeville, therefore, remained in the hands of actors, who had seldom any vocal powers and still seldomer any but a superficial cultivation, but who willingly appeared in operettas on account of the high fees[18] and great applause they might reckon upon. Reichardt gives an appalling description of the German opera in Berlin in 1774; he heard one of Hiller's operas "sung by a wide-mouthed, screeching woman, and a lover with a voice like a night-watchman," and that before an audience which had "the reputation of very refined taste";[19] he was no better pleased at Leipzig.[20] Müller says of a performance of Wolf's "Treuen Kohler" at Dresden in 1776: "As only two of all the performers were at all musical, you may imagine how the opera was {DIE ENTFÜHRUNG AUS DEM SERAIL.} (220) rendered." It is conceivable, therefore, that the growing partiality for German opera was regarded with disfavour by earnest men, as prejudicial alike to the dramatic interests which were still struggling to assert themselves in Germany,[21] and to the artistic development of operatic music proper.[22] The actor Müller, during his professional tour in 1776, made himself acquainted with the views of competent judges as to the admissibility of German operettas; the different opinions which he collected are characteristic enough. Lessing--who held the union of poetry and music as the most perfect in existence, "so that nature herself appears to have destined them not so much for union as to be considered as one and the same art"[23]--was against vaudevilles. "They are the ruin of our stage. Such works are easily written; every comedy affords material to the author; he scatters a few songs about, and the thing is done. Our new dramatic poets find this a far easier task than writing a good character piece." Gleim was even more violently opposed to vaudeville than Lessing, and gave Müller an epigram upon the "Witch":-- Die, schlau wie Schlang' und Krokodill, Sich schleicht in aller Menschen Herzen Und drinnen sitzt, als wie ein Huhn Auf seinem Nest, und lehrt: Nur klcine Thaten thun Und über grosse Thaten scherzen!"