OPERA 



OPHICLEIDE 



609 



1774, and produced his Iphigenie en Avlide and 

 Iphititnit en Tauride there ; and the ideal expressed 

 by Peri and Monteverde, embodied to a considerable 

 extent in these and other works ( see GLUCK ), has at 

 last found its fjoal in the music drama of Wagner. 

 Cherubim's seriousness and nobility of style (Les 

 Deux Journees, 1800), Mehul's fine ear for effect 

 (Joseph, 1807), S|x>ntini's magnificence of concep- 

 tion (Vestale, 1805), and Halevy's dramatic truth 

 (Juive, 1835) were all ranged under Gluck's 

 banner, and the roll of French grand opera is 

 brought to a gorgeous close with the name of 

 Wa"ner's predecessor, Meyerbeer ( Robert le Diable, 

 1831, Huguenot*, 1836, Le Prophete, 1843). The 

 new blood he brought with him from the schools of 

 Germany and Italy invigorated it, and the time 

 was ripe when the experiment of Rienzi was made 

 in 1842. Other important contributions to grand 

 opera were Auber's Masaniello (or Muette de Par- 

 tlci, 1828) and Kossini's Guillaume Tell (1829). 



Opera Comique (by no means comic opera) is a 

 title applied to all "works which, on account of 

 tpoken dialogue, were not eligible for performance 

 at the Grand Opera. Grctry's Cceur de Lion ( 1784 ), 

 Meliul's Joseph, Boieldien's La Dame Blanche 

 ( 1825), Herold's Pre aux Clercs ( 1832), and Auber's 

 Le Mafon, Les Diamante de la Couronne, &c. are 

 the most famous. This Opera Comique, so purely 

 French, had a large share in the development of 

 the modern lyric opera, of which Gounod's Faust 

 (1859), Thomas's Mignon (1871), and Bizet's 

 Carmen ( 1875) are good examples. 



The Ballet (entirely pantomimic) attained a very 

 high pitch of development in Paris, where Delibes 

 (1836-91) produced his charming Coppelia and 

 Sylvia. 



Comic opera proper ( Opera Buff a ) is represented 

 in Italy by Rossini's Barbiere, Donizetti's Figlia 

 del Rcgaimento (1840), and Verdi's last great 

 work, Foltiaf (1893); in Germany by Flotow's 

 Martha (184*), Nicolai's Merry Wives (1849); in 

 France (Opera Bouffe) by Offenbach's Orphee aitx 

 En/ers (1858), Grande Duchesse (1867), &c., Le- 

 cocq'g Madame Anyot (1873), &c., and numberless 

 other bright works ; anil in England worthily by the 

 charming Gilbert-Sullivan series (Pinafore, 1878; 

 Patience, 1881 ; Mikado, 1885). 



Music Drama is the ideal which Wagner has 

 sought to embody in Tristan nnd Isoltle (1865), 

 Meistersinger (1868), Jtin;/ il,-< MMnngen (1876), 

 and Parsifal ( 1882). Rienzi (produced in Dresden 

 in 1842) establishes Ids connection with the Grand 

 Opera of Meyerbeer, and in the Flying Dutchman 

 (1843), Tann'hauser (1845), and Lohengrin (1849) 

 the growth of his method is distinctly seen, as well 

 as his indebtedness to many predecessors, especi- 

 ally, in orchestration, to Berlioz. Wagner seeks 

 to make the 'Art Work of the Future,' as he calls 

 it, equally dependent on music, drama, and scenic 

 art the requirements of none lieing sacrificed to 

 the demands of the other, l.ut all contributing to 

 one perfect unity. His influence is clearly trace- 

 able in all modern operas e.g. Goldmark's Queen 

 of Sheba, Merlin, Boito's Mejisto/eie, Ponchielli's 

 Giixonda, Verdi's Otello, &c. 



English Opera. Purcell's early work, Dido and 

 jKneas, written at the age of seventeen, his chef 

 d'ceuvre King Arthur ( 1691 ), and other works gave 

 promise of uoh an English school of opera as the 

 ' Masques ' of Lawes and others had suggested 

 (1613-75), but no one was ready to carry on the 

 work after his early death in 1695 (aged thirty- 

 seven ). Dr Arne's Artaxerxes ( 1 762 ), out of thirty - 

 four operas, is the only other English opera which 

 calls for mention. Italian opera became the fashion 

 in London (Handel wrote forty-four, 1710-39), and 

 England's attention has been divided )>etween that 

 cliool and the highly ina-sthetic and, from an 

 351 



operatic point of view, worthless form of Ballad 

 Opera, founded by Dr Pepusch (Beggar's Opera, 

 1728), until recent years, when Dr Mackenzie's 

 Colombo, (1883), Villiers Stanford's Canterbury 

 Pilgrims (1884), Goring Thomas's Esmeralda 

 (1883) and Nadeschda (1885), and lastly Sullivan's 

 Ivanhoe ( 1891 ) have sought to win recognition for 

 England among the European schools of opera. 

 English opera was introduced into America in 

 1750, in the shape of the Beggar's Opera, and 

 Italian opera in 1825. 



See Hogarth, Memoirs of the Opera ( 1851 ) ; H. Suther- 

 land Edwards, Essay* on Modern Opera ( 1881 ) ; D. 

 Hanslick, Die Moderne Oper, in three parts ( 1885) ; the 

 articles in Grove's and other musical dictionaries on 

 Opera, &c., and on GLUCK, MOZART, WEBER, WAQNEB, 

 &c. in this work. 



Opera-glass (Fr. lorgnette), a double tele- 

 scope, used for looking at objects that require to 

 be clearly seen rather than greatly magnified, such 

 as adjoining scenery and buildings, the performers 

 at a theatre or opera, &c. The opera-glass is short 

 and light, and can lie easily managed with one hand. 

 Its small magnifying power (from two to three 

 at the most ), anil the large amount of light admitted 

 by the ample object-glass, enable it to present a 

 bright and pleasant picture, so that the eye is not 

 strained to make out details, as in telescopes of 

 greater power, which generally show a highly-mag- 

 nified but faint picture. It allows the use of both 

 eyes, which gives to the spectator the double advan- 

 tage, not possessed by single telescopes, of not 

 requiring to keep one eye shut (a somewhat un- 

 natural way of looking), and of seeing things stand 

 out stereoscopically as in ordinary vision. 



The opera-glass is the same in principle as the 

 telescope invented by Galileo. It consists of two 

 lenses, an object-lens and an eye-lens. The obiect- 

 lens is convex, and the eye-lens concave. They 

 are placed nearly at the distance of the difference 

 of tlieir focal lengths from one another (see TELE- 

 SCOPE ). The opera-glass need not be set to a precise 

 point, as is necessary with ordinary terrestrial tele- 

 scopes, for the lengthening or shortening of the in- 

 strument does not produce so decided an effect on 

 the divergence of the light ; the change of diverg- 

 ence caused by screwing the opera-glass out or in is 

 so slight as not much to overstep the power of 

 adjustment of the eye, so that an object does not 

 lose all its distinctness at any point within the 

 range of the instrument. There is, however, a 

 particular length at which an object at a certain 

 distance is most easily looked at. The two tele- 

 scopes 4.1 the opera-glass are identical in construc- 

 tion, and are placed parallel to each other. The 

 blending of the two images is easily effected by 

 the eyes, as in ordinary vision. Opera-glasses have 

 now "come into such demand that they form an 

 important article of manufacture, of which Paris 

 is the great seat. So largely and cheaply are they 

 produced in Paris that ithos nearly a monopoly of 

 the trade. They may be had from 2s. 6d. to 6 or 

 7. The cheapest opera-glasses consist of single 

 lenses; those of the better class have compound 

 achromatic lenses. A very ordinary construction 

 for a medium price is to have an achromatic object- 

 glass, consisting of two lenses, and a single eye-lens. 

 In the finest class of opera-glasses, which are called 

 field-glasses, both eye-lenses and object-lenses are 

 achromatic. Plossls celebrated field-glasses (Ger. 

 Feldstecher) have twelve lenses, each object-lens and 

 eye-lens lieing composed of three separate lenses. 



Ophiclcide (Gr. ophis, 'serpent,' and kleis, 

 'key'), a brass bass wind-instrument, was devel- 

 oped from improvements on the Serpent (q.v.) 

 alMiut the beginning of the 19th century. It con- 

 siste of a conical tube having a bell like that of 



