There are one hundred and four musicians in "Salome", with sixty strings and an organ celeste. Three men carry on an excited conversation, one in seven eighth time, one in five eighth time and one in four four time, while the orchestra continues its original tempo. Puccini, Humperdinck and Mascagni are considered by many to be the best living composers. "Königskinder" is chiefly declamatory and never sacrfices the human voice for the orchestra, and expounds and illustrates, but never fails to support the shapely arioso by rarely defined melody. "Conchita" by Riccardo Zandonai embraces a few fragmentary themes and the voice parts are declamatory without a melodic line or the shapeliness of an arioso. Mascagni's "Cavalleria Rusticana" shows the introduction of a new device with the performance of the orchestral interlude and division of the work into two parts, with the curtain remaining up and showing the empty stage. Both he and Leoncavello have written short operas with effective librettos, and they stand for dramatic verities. Our American composers seem to follow different schools and styles without establishing one of their own. "Mona" by Horatio Parker assigns not a motive for a label to each character but a tonality, though only one blessed with absolute pitch can appreciate this. Walter Damrosch's "Cyrano" is in a post-Wagnerian style, a sort of melodious arioso frequently broadening into definitely shaped airs, with numerous ensembles, trios, quartets and choruses and the orchestra plays an important part, being continuously melodious, but not monopolizing melodic interest with leading motives attached to characters. "The Pipe of Desire", by F. S. Converse, has passages in a later Wagnerian style, and there are four prominent motives while the orchestra is exceedingly good, especially in depicting the "Naioa" theme. Victor Herbert's music is replete with local color and drama, and the representative themes are not developed, although his music is rather light and better suited for the operetta and the salon. Thus we see how the musical forms of the opera have changed from the older more vocal feats to the newer well developed music drama. Gluck and Wagner brought back the undying principles of dramatic truth. In the days of Bellini, Rossini and Donizetti, melody was supreme and the dramatic truth was lost sight of. In "William Tell" and "Der Freischütz" there was a step onward, and with Wagner we find a return to, or reform, of the first principles of true dramatic art as applied to the opera by the Bardi coterie. Individualism is the prevailing tendency and succes depends on the forcibleness of the characters and the development of the leitmotiv.