His “Orfeo,” produced in 1762, created a great sensation, and in Alceste (1766) we find him, to quote his own preface to it, “avoiding the abuses which have been introduced through the mistaken vanity of singers and the excessive complaisance of composers, and which, from the most splendid and beautiful of all public exhibitions, has reduced the opera to the most tiresome and ridiculous of spectacles.” He considered that music should second poetry, by strengthening the expression of the sentiments and the interest of the situations, and adds, “I have therefore carefully avoided interrupting a singer in the warmth of dialogue, in order to wait for a tedious ritornel; or stopping him during one of his sentences to display the agility of his voice in a large vocal passage.” He greatly increases the importance of the introduction or overture, making it foreshadow the nature of the coming drama. Composers were either too hardened or too cowardly to at once follow and imitate his excellent reforms, and great disputings and much rancour ensued, Gluck being opposed by the singers and the old school headed by Piccini. We will leave this _opera seria_ for a moment, restored to its high position in art, and glance at a lighter form, the _opera buffa_, or comic opera, which may be traced to the little _entr’actes_, or _intermezzi_, given as a sort of relaxation between the acts of plays, as early as the sixteenth century. At first, madrigals, or favourite instrumental solos, were used for this purpose; later on, when operatic forms appeared, you find scenas or duets, in which the chief idea was to raise a laugh, very often at the expense of good taste. Scarlatti’s pupils developed these _intermezzi_, and gave them such artistic importance that they grew to be rivals to the grand opera, and eventually held their own position as _opera buffa_. Pergolesi was most successful in this style, and his “La Serva Padrona” (1746), one of the earliest specimens, was a great favourite. The accompaniment was for string quartett only, and there were but two _dramatis personæ_. His fellow student, Leonardo Vinci, wrote several comic operas, and further on, Nicolo Piccini, whom we have just left opposing Gluck in Paris, made many advances in _opera buffa_, giving greater contrasts and more elaborate and effective _finales_ than his forerunners. In fact, he was stronger in this sort of composition than in _opera seria_, to which latter we now return. We find at the end of the eighteenth century the brilliant and successful works of Paisiello, a rival, at that time, of Mozart. At the same period Sarti, Salieri, Cimarosa, Paër, Righini, and others wrote operas.