[Sidenote: =Leoncavallo=] Very frequently coupled upon the same play-bill with Mascagni’s _Cavalleria_ is the short modern Italian opera, _I Pagliacci_ (The Strolling Players), the work of Leoncavallo, and written upon much the same general lines as its forerunner; its prologue, for a solo baritone, is popular in our concert halls; in the opera it occurs as part of the overture, the singer pushing his way through the curtain, and retiring again after his performance, before the stage scene is actually disclosed. Leoncavallo has written many other works, but his chief distinction of later date has been that upon him has fallen the choice of the German Emperor to write a typically German opera on the subject of _Roland of Berlin_. The work was produced in Berlin in 1905, but without giving full satisfaction, the general opinion being that a German composer should have been chosen to clothe so essentially national a subject with music, and that Leoncavallo’s attempt was uninspired, grandiose, and lacking in the elements of beauty. [Illustration] [Sidenote: =Cilea=] Other followers of Mascagni are Giordano, composer of _Andrea Chenier_; Spinelli, chiefly known by _A Basso Porto_; and Franchetti. More famous than these is Francesco Cilea, a young composer of promise, whose one work that has been submitted to English audiences, _Adriana Lecouvreur_, contains music of great beauty and charm. The method of Mascagni is closely followed, even to the introduction of a tuneful and charmingly scored intermezzo, but there is independence of melodic phrase and real grip in the music. _Adriana_ was originally produced at Milan in 1902, and was staged at Covent Garden during the autumn visit of the San Carlo Company two years later. [Sidenote: =Puccini=] Undoubtedly the greatest of the modern Italian composers is Giacomo Puccini, who has made himself famous not merely by one opera but by several. His earlier works, _Manon Lescaut_, etc., hardly represent him at his best, although they contain much fine music; but in _La Bohème_ (produced in 1896), in _La Tosca_, and most of all in _Madama Butterfly_ (1904), this clever musician has found himself and has risen to great heights. He is most happy in the way in which his music paints the situation to be depicted, and he has a most wonderfully ready power of melody. The continuous use of distinctive and rhythmic melody and the absence of any definite characterization by means of the _leit-motif_ differentiates his work very largely from that of the Wagner School—it is altogether on a lighter basis, but the melody has an irresistible attractiveness, which accounts largely for the favour which his operas are finding at the present day. Such straightforward lyrical writing as the theme which usually accompanies Sharpless the Consul (in _Madama Butterfly_),— [Music] or the more tenderly impassioned themes, such as this one from the love duet which closes the first Act of the same opera,