To resume. As everyone knows, the way to become a blacksmith is by
working at a forge. Sitting in the shade does not give the experience
which develops talent. We should never have known the great days of the
Italian theatre, if Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, and Verdi had had to
undergo our régime. If Mozart had had to wait until he was forty to
produce his first opera, we should never have had _Don Giovanni_ or _Le
Nozze di Figaro_, for Mozart died at thirty-five.

The policy imposed on Bizet and Delibes certainly deprived us of several
works which would now be among the glories of the repertoire at the
Opéra and the Opéra-Comique. That is an irreparable misfortune; one
which we cannot sufficiently deplore.




CHAPTER V

LOUIS GALLET


As _Déjanire_, cast in a new form, has again appeared in the vast frame
of the Opéra stage, I may be allowed to recall my recollections of my
friend and collaborator, Louis Gallet, the diligent and chosen companion
of my best years, whose support was so dear and precious to me.
Collaboration for some reason unknown to me is deprecated. Opera, it is
said, should spring from the brain like Minerva, fully armed. So much
the better if such divine intellects can be found, but they are rare and
always will be. For dramatic and literary art on the one hand and
musical art on the other require different powers, which are not