OPERA. 
tragedy or comedy. Unreafonable critics want to unite 
two things. totally ge aaa ftrength and energy with 
melodious ‘ofc They aes — eta to: har- 
y. can be 
x with rapture to fine mufic well a 
of execution, it is “more than {pecious.: = 
- of the queftion, it is bare el In France, 
impr, than: where finging is ins bernie talent to be 
difpla 
Ba nm great fingers are employed at an enormous ex- 
pence, who = voices highly cultivated, a are poffefled 
1 powers of embellifhing found, and of ren- 
morality: it is by keeping bad compa 4 and e 
the ribaldry and nonfenf of another art ;—it is needlefs to 
fay nee poetry. is in fault. 
w Italian. Mufie. It 
the opinion of Moratori (Delta Perf. Poef.), that a peaical 
alled.  L’ Anfiparnafo,” te 
a x comic 
at learned an an query feems implicitly 
the author’s own words ; 
repifter of dramas of e ki 
Lioni Allacci,?’ that befides. the: (Sutriizio oe Bece cari, fet. 
to mufic by Alfonfo Viola, at Ferrara, in 155: there are 
imaumerable mufical. dramas upon reco a higher date 
than PAnfiparnafo of Orazio Vecchi: as I Pazzi Amantiy 
rapprefentata in mufica in Dieser 1569; La Poefia: Rap-~ 
Sealer cemponimento per Mutica, Ven. 15745 far 
Tr: componimento, poefia di Frangipani, i 
Claudio. Mails Ven. 1574; La Poefia Rapprefetata, 
componimento muficale cantato in Venezia, anno 157 
It Re Salamone: rapprefentatione muficale, cantata in Ven. 
1579; Pace, e Vittoria, rapprefentazioni cantata in muficay 
in- Ven. 1580; Pallade, componimento. per mufica, in Ve- 
ive) 
‘ee 
cantata in 
taadrigal in ation : for theu 
in five parts; yet all the charafters never appear on the flage 
tegether, except in the finale, or lait. {cene. There are ex- 
cellent wooden cuts at the beginning of every {cene, by 
which the number of perfons-employed in it, and their prin- 
cipal bufinefs appear. 
This = rama is neither. mentiened by Crefcimbeni, nor in 
and though Walther gives a lit of 
the Dra pelt 
Qrazio Vecchi rinted between the 
twelve oar ers 
it en parte among. this author’s works by hig 
i ere is nothing like a folo air, or dag ety In 
a had not 
yet got out of the 
etual chorus; and that 
among any parts in diffimilar mo 
and au age Prise the words unintelligible even to the 
natives of Italy. 
As there is no overture to this or any of the firft mufical 
y fuppofe ee the prologue fupplied its 
for an. inftrument of any kind is 
s there was 
common time appears, = ¢ . or y 5 yet we are con- 
as that the meafures aie frequently have jena chan anged, 
agreement, in the performance, to maké melody of fom 
pallages practicable ; which, though ey difficult and 
ea 
preflive in triple nd it is not perhaps fo mach from the. 
ange of ftyle and general caft of t meapel that we air 
m our ignoran 
felves, to which iis latitude att frequently have b 
one ven 
