If _Faust_ holds first place for popularity with the masses, it is closely followed in this respect by the _Carmen_ of Bizet, a work of greater dramatic power, and offering much that is fresh in its scoring and its ingenious use of Spanish colouring and rhythms. The performance of _Faust_ or _Carmen_ is fairly certain to fill any provincial opera-house, and we find these works to be very often the mainstay of the touring companies. Indeed, statistics show the number of performances of these works to exceed that of all other operas, and in 1881 the number of times _Carmen_ had been performed exceeded, as was ascertained in Berlin, that of all the representations of Weber and Wagner’s works put together. But Wagner’s music enjoys so large a share of public attention at the present time that the proportion of performances of these operas is probably now considerably less. [Sidenote: =Offenbach, 1819-80=] Contemporary with Gounod and Bizet was Jules Offenbach, a composer of comparatively low aim but with a certain amount of musicianly skill and a sure knowledge of effect. His operas are mostly comic, but in their day they enjoyed a _furore_ by no means limited to the Parisian public. His output was enormous, nearly seventy operas standing to his name; of these the most famous is _Orphée aux enfers_; his most ambitious effort, _Les Contes d’Hoffmann_, was only completed just before his death. Written only for the pleasure of the time, there is little of any lasting merit in his work. [Sidenote: =Délibes and Lalo=] Of higher standard, although his attention was in the main given to comic opera, is the music of Léo Délibes (1836-91), composer of the operas _Le Roi l’a dit_ (1873), _Lakmé_ (1883), and the ballet, _Coppélia_. Lalo (1823-92) is best known by his work, _Le Roi d’ Ys_, often staged and containing much good music. Victor Massé (1822-76) composed _Paul et Virginie_ and many other works which gained popularity. [Sidenote: =Thomas, 1811-96=] With brief mention of Ambroise Thomas, a musician much influenced by Gounod, who wrote two works at least of enduring quality, _Mignon_ (1866) and _Hamlet_ (1868) for the French opera, we must for the present leave this school of composition, returning to it anon to make mention of a number of brilliant men of talent still happily alive and at work to-day adding their quota to the fabric reared by their predecessors. CHAPTER X. ENGLISH OPERA OF THE EIGHTEENTH AND PART OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. _The Beggar’s Opera_—Arne—Bishop—Balfe—Wallace—Goring Thomas—Sullivan—Living writers. We have not much to boast of, so far as English operatic music is concerned, from the death of Purcell to about the middle of the nineteenth century. Purcell’s work, in its limited field, was excellent, but Handel’s powerful personality attracted so much attention to the Italian methods of composition that no other style found real favour for many years. [Sidenote: =The “Beggar’s Opera”=]