of Mantua, but otherwise the original scheme of the work remains unaltered. Rigoletto, the Duke's jester, has an only daughter, Gilda, whom he keeps closely immured in an out-of-the-way part of the city, to preserve her from the vicious influence of the court. The amorous Duke, however, has discovered her retreat, and won her heart in the disguise of a student. The courtiers, too, have found out that Rigoletto is in the habit of visiting a lady, and jumping to the conclusion that she is his mistress, determine to carry her off by night in order to pay the jester out for the bitter insults which he loves to heap upon them. Their plan succeeds, and Gilda is conveyed to the Palace. There she is found by her father, and to his horror she confesses that she loves the Duke. He determines to punish his daughter's seducer, and hires a bravo named Sparafucile to put him out of the way. This worthy beguiles the Duke, by means of the charms of his sister Maddalena, to a lonely inn on the banks of the river, promising to hand over his body to Rigoletto at midnight. Maddalena pleads tearfully for the life of her handsome lover, but Sparafucile is a man of honour, and will not break his contract with the jester. Rigoletto has paid for a body, and a body he must have. However, he consents, should any stranger visit the inn that night, to kill him in the Duke's place. Gilda, who is waiting in the street, hears this and makes up her mind to die instead of her lover. She enters the house, and is promptly murdered by Sparafucile. Her body, sewn up in a sack, is handed over at the appointed hour to Rigoletto. The jester, in triumph, is about to hurl the body into the river, when he hears the Duke singing in the distance. Overcome by a horrible suspicion, he opens the sack and is confronted by the body of his daughter. The music of 'Rigoletto' is on a very different plane from that of 'Ernani.' Verdi had become uneasy in the fetters of the cavatina-cabaletta tradition--the slow movement followed by the quick--which, since the day of Rossini, had ruled Italian opera with a rod of iron. In 'Rigoletto,' although the old convention still survives, the composer shows a keen aspiration after a less trammelled method of expressing himself. Rigoletto's great monologue is a piece of declamation pure and simple, and as such struck a note till then unheard in Italy. The whole of the last act is a brilliant example of Verdi's picturesque power, combined with acute power of characterisation. The Duke's gay and lightsome _canzone_, the magnificent quartet, in which the different passions of four personages are contrasted and combined with such consummate art, and the sombre terrors of the tempest, touch a level of art which Verdi had not till then attained, nor was to reach again until the days of 'Aida,' twenty years later.