artificial that the poetic text had no chance whatever of asserting
its rights and being understood. Now, the modern opera, which was
originated about three hundred years ago by a number of Florentine
amateurs, although it sprang from a desire to revive the ancient Greek
drama, in which music was united with poetry, represents at the same
time a reaction against this unintelligible Netherland style. The new
opera at first went to the opposite extreme, making the distinct
declamation of the text its principal object and neglecting vocal
ornamentation, and even melody, on purpose. The famous vocalist and
teacher, Caccini, although he taught his pupils how to sing trills and
roulades, declared that they were not essential to good singing, but
merely a means of tickling the ear, and, therefore, generally to be
avoided. He taught the Italian singers how to express the passions,
and reproduce the meaning of the words they sang--an art which,
according to the Roman, Pietro della Valle, was not previously known
to them.

The dry declamation of the first Italian operas, however, was not
supported by a sufficiently rich accompaniment to be enjoyable after
the first sense of novelty had passed away; and even the gifted
Monteverde's ingenious innovations in instrumental coloring and in
the free use of expressive discords, could not ward off a second
reaction, in favor of song pure and simple, which set in with
Scarlatti, the founder of the Neapolitan school, whose first opera was
produced a little over two centuries ago. From this time dates the
supremacy, in Italy, of the _bel canto_, or beautiful song, which,
however, gradually degenerated into mere circus music in which every
artistic aim was deliberately sacrificed to sensuous tone-revelry and
agility of execution, the voice being treated as a mere instrument,
without any regard for its higher prerogative of interpreting poetry