If the critics of the late nineteenth and the twentieth centuries have successfully exposed not only the æsthetic flaws in Wagner's theory of the music-drama, but also his own obvious departures in practice from pre-conceived convictions, as well as the futility of much of his polemic and philosophical writings, European composers of opera, almost without exception, save in Russia, have frankly adopted his methods in whole or in part. Bruckner, Bungert, d'Albert, Schillings, Pfitzner, Goldmark, Humperdinck, Weingartner, and Richard Strauss in Germany; Saint-Saëns (in varying degree), Chabrier, Lalo, Massenet (temporarily), Bruneau and Charpentier (slightly), d'Indy, Chausson, and Dukas in France; Verdi (more remotely), Puccini, and possibly Wolf-Ferrari in Italy; Holbrooke in England, are among the more conspicuous whose obligation to Wagner is frankly perceptible. In Germany the most prominent contributors to dramatic literature, aside from Cornelius, with _Der Barbier von Bagdad_, and Goetz with _Der Widerspenstigen Zähmung_, have been Goldmark, Humperdinck, and Richard Strauss. The latter, with an incredibly complex system of leading motives, an elaborately contrapuntal connotation of dramatic situations, aided by an intensely psychological orchestral descriptiveness, has reached the summit of post-Wagnerian drama. His later dramatic experiments--a ruthless adaptation of Molière's _Bourgeois gentilhomme_, containing the one-act opera _Ariadne auf Naxos_, and the ballet 'The Legend of Joseph'--are distinctly less representative examples of his dramatic resourcefulness. In France, the Wagnerian influence is typified in such works as Chabrier's _Gwendoline_, d'Indy's _Fervaal_, and to a lesser extent Chausson's _Le Roi Arthus_. Bruneau's realistic operas and Charpentier's sociological _Louise_ belong, first of all, to the characteristically French lyric drama in which the Wagnerian element is relatively unimportant. In Debussy's _Pelléas et Mélisande_, Dukas' _Ariane et Barbe-bleue_, Ravel's _L'Heure espagnole_, and Fauré's _Pénélope_, we find a virtually independent conception of opera which may be almost described as anti-Wagnerian. In Italy, the later Verdi shows an independent solution of dramatic problems, although conscious of the work of Wagner. Puccini is the successor of Verdi, rather than the follower of Wagner, although his use of motives and treatment of the orchestra shows at least an unconscious assimilation of Wagnerian practice, Mascagni and Leoncavallo are virtually negligible except for their early successes, and one or two other works. Younger composers like Montemezzi and Zadonai are beginning to claim attention, but Wolf-Ferrari, combining Italian instinct with German training, seems on the way to attain a renascence of the _opera buffa_, provided that he is not again tempted by the sensational type represented by 'The Jewels of the Madonna.' Opera in England has remained an exotic, save