A Book of Operas: Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music

The HTML version of this text produced by Bob Frone can be found
at <http://www.intac.com/~rfrone/operas/Books/oper-books.htm>
Plain text adaption by Andrew Sly.
Old friends are best. —SELDEN.
I love everything that's old,—old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine. —GOLDSMITH.
Old wood to burn! Old wine to drink! Old friends to trust! Old authors to read! —MELCHIOR.
First performance of Italian opera in the United States—Production of Rossini's opera in Rome, London, Paris, and New York—Thomas Phillipps and his English version—Miss Leesugg and Mrs. Holman—Emanuel Garcia and his troupe—Malibran—Early operas in America—Colman's Spanish Barber —Other Figaro operas—How Rossini came to Write Il Barbiere —The story of a fiasco—Garcia and his Spanish song— Segui, o caro —Giorgi-Righetti—The plot of the opera—The overture— Ecco ridente in cielo — Una voce poco fà, —Rossini and Patti—The lesson scene and what singers have done with it—Grisi, Alboni, Catalani, Bosio, Gassier, Patti, Sembrich, Melba, and Viardot—An echo of Haydn.
Beaumarchais and his Figaro comedies— Le Nozze a sequel to Il Barbiere —Mozart and Rossini—Their operas compared—Opposition to Beaumarchais's Marriage de Figaro —Moral grossness of Mozart's opera—A relic of feudalism—Humor of the horns—A merry overture —The story of the opera—Cherubino,— Non so più cosa son — Benucci and the air Non più andrai — Voi che sapete —A marvellous finale—The song to the zephyr—A Spanish fandango— Deh vieni non tardar.
The oldest German opera current in America—Beethoven's appreciation of Mozart's opera—Its Teutonism—Otto Jahn's estimate—Papageno, the German Punch—Emanuel Schikaneder—Wieland and the original of the story of the opera—How Die Zanberflöte came to be written—The story of Lulu —Mozart and freemasonry—The overture to the opera— The fugue theme and a theme from a sonata by Clementi—The opera's play— O Isis und Osiris — Hellish rage and fiorituri—The song of the Two Men in Armor—Goethe and the libretto of Die Zauberflöte — How the opera should be viewed.