Few of the old actors were still alive, though enough had been gathered to make up the nucleus of the companies and to transmit the traditions of the Globe and the Blackfriars. The acting of the Restoration probably soon surpassed that of the earlier period, and the great triumphs of Betterton and Mrs. Barry set new and long influential traditions in English tragedy. The changes which most fundamentally affected the drama were those in the stage and the actors. The influence exerted upon the drama by the new opera may also be described as largely theatrical. The opera of the Restoration is to be distinguished from the form as it has prevailed since the introduction of Italian opera into England at the beginning of the eighteenth century. The term was loosely used to describe a variety of entertainments, in which the dialogue might be altogether sung, or in part spoken, and in which the dancing and decoration were regarded as not less essential than the music. Derived from France, where the opera gained great favor and attracted the services of Corneille and Quinault, the English species was closely related to two national forms of drama, the masque and the tragedy. In music, dancing, and machinery it resembled the former; in theme, plot, and persons, often the latter. A resemblance between the opera and the heroic tragedy is also observable in the prominence given by each to heroic love. Tragedies were readily transformed into operas as in the case of Lee's "Theodosius" and Tate's "Brutus of Alba," and of Fletcher's "Island Princess" and "Prophetess." Throughout the period the relations between the two remain close. They were presented in the same theatre; the same actors often played in one and sang in the other; an orchestral band was provided to play between the acts in tragedy; and tragedy availed itself of songs, scenery, and machines. Entirely apart from its place in the history of English music, English opera is of some importance in the development of tragedy, partly as a rival and partly because it promoted operatic elements in tragedy itself. Tragedy came in the Restoration period to rely more than ever before upon the externals of its stage presentation, and on elements then considered distinctively operatic,--scenery, spectacle, and music.