The violins raged and wailed in unison, all the bows moving together
like parts of a well-regulated machine. The kettle-drums, marking
the cadences, rolled at exact intervals. The director beat time
furiously, as though dragging up the notes and chords with the end
of his baton, while the horns and cornets blared, the bass viols
growled, and the flageolets and piccolos lost themselves in an
amazing complication of liquid gurgles and modulated roulades.

On the stage every one was singing. The soprano in the centre,
vocalised in her highest register, bringing out the notes with
vigorous twists of her entire body, and tossing them off into the
air with sharp flirts of her head. On the right, the basso,
scowling, could be heard in the intervals of the music repeating

"Il perfido, l'ingrato"

while to the left of the soprano, the baritone intoned
indistinguishable, sonorous phrases, striking his breast and
pointing to the fallen tenor with his sword. At the extreme left of
the stage the contralto, in tights and plush doublet, turned to the
audience, extending her hands, or flinging back her arms. She raised
her eyebrows with each high note, and sunk her chin into her ruff
when her voice descended. At certain intervals her notes blended
with those of the soprano's while she sang:

"Addio, felicita del ciel!"

The tenor, raised upon one hand, his shoulders supported by his
friends, sustained the theme which the soprano led with the words: