For years Verdi wrote operas on this popular plan, producing the familiar _Un Ballo in Maschera_ as late as 1859. But the influence of the methods of Wagner was creeping over him, and (although he never attempted to follow the master to the full) it is evident in his grand opera _Aïda_, produced in 1871. This work, rich and glowing with local colour, and with a plot whose action is laid in Egypt, is a stepping-stone between the earlier and later operas, and shows the music of its composer in a transition stage. Here is a type of Verdi’s ready gift of melody:— Radamès’ first Aria in “Aïda” (Verdi). [Music] Celeste Aïda forma divina mistico serto di luce e fior [Sidenote: =Verdi’s Later Operas=] _Otello_, produced in 1887, and _Falstaff_ in 1893, when its wonderful creator was just upon eighty years of age, are modern operas in the real sense of the expression. The old Verdi is to a great extent laid aside, and these marvellous and powerful works, while still exhibiting great freshness of melody, give evidence also of such masterly use of the orchestra, and such perfect wedding of words with music as is only to be found in the music of the most modern days. So that in Verdi’s operas we stretch hands across the chasm that divides the simple, melodious, old-fashioned works from the complex polyphonic modern examples, and note in his compositions a movement and progress parallel with that made in all other branches of musical art during a similar period of its history. CHAPTER VIII. SOME LESSER STARS IN THE OPERATIC FIRMAMENT. (_b_) THE GERMAN SCHOOL (KEISER TO NICOLAI). Keiser and his successors—Hiller—Real German opera—Spohr—Marschner—Operatic interest not centred in Germany at this time. [Sidenote: =Keiser and his Successors=] A good start was given to German opera, as we have already shown, by Keiser, who wrote over one hundred operas for the Hamburg house. The fact that after his decease the centre of interest shifts partly to England (where Handel was at work), and still more to Italy, does not mean that German composers were idle. True, many of them were writing operas on the Italian plan, and therefore must be classed with the Italian school, and even the greatest sons of German soil were content to produce their masterpieces in foreign capitals rather than at home. Thus it is that we find Gluck bringing out all his important works in Vienna or Paris; Mozart his at Prague, Munich, or Vienna; Beethoven his only specimen in Vienna.