The great test of an art work, as such, is its truth of expression. The moment this is wanting, its value diminishes, and it is powerless to survive the caprice of fashion. Thus we find that those works into which composers have poured their innermost feelings, untrammelled by any desire to purchase an ephemeral popularity at the cost of the sacrifice of principle, are those that have remained. This is so much the case with stage works that it is necessary to state it definitely before proceeding any further. For years the operatic composer was almost entirely at the mercy of the singer, and it has required many efforts on the part of great artists to shake off the load, the final emancipation being effected through the agency of one whose genius towers far above that of his contemporaries, and whose influence upon music has been as widespread as it has been beneficial. Need I say that I allude to Richard Wagner? The spirit of routine, so engrained in the human mind, has also much to account for in preventing the development of music as represented in the opera. It is far from my desire to say anything in disparagement of a form of art such as the "opéra comique," a _genre_ that has been illustrated with so conspicuous a degree of success by composers such as Grétry, Monsigny, Dalayrac, Nicolo, Boiëldieu, Hérold, and Auber. At the same time, it must be admitted that the ideal aimed at by modern French musicians is altogether a higher one. The "lyrical drama" has usurped the place of the old "opéra comique," and those composers whose inability or disinclination have kept them from following the prevalent movement, have perforce drifted into that mongrel species of art known as the "opérette." From an æsthetic point of view the change is emphatically for the better, as the "opéra comique," corresponding to the German "Singspiel," and to our "ballad opera," and consisting of an amalgam of speech and song, being neither fish, flesh, nor fowl, is utterly inconsistent with logic. That there is still, however, a place for works coming under the denomination of a modernised form of "opéra comique," as distinct from the "opérette," without pretensions of too lofty an order, is evidenced by the delightful works of the late Léo Delibes, "Le Roi l'a dit," "Jean de Nivelle," and "Lakmé"; and more recently by Mons. Chabrier's "Le Roi Malgré Lui" and Mons. Messager's "La Basoche." In the year 1832, when Ambroise Thomas had completed his twenty-first birthday, the Rossini fever was at its height. Beethoven was comparatively little known in France, and those amongst his symphonies that had been brought to a hearing had excited more wonder than admiration.