CHAPTER XXI

THE THIRD ACT

The libretto of the Third Act was steeped in the sentiment of Young
Italy. I wish that I could pipe to your mind's hearing any notion of the
fine music of Rocco Ricci, and touch you to feel the revelations which
were in this new voice. Rocco and Vittoria gave the verses a life that
cannot belong to them now; yet, as they contain much of the vital spirit
of the revolt, they may assist you to some idea of the faith animating
its heads, and may serve to justify this history.

Rocco's music in the opera of Camilla had been sprung from a fresh
Italian well; neither the elegiac-melodious, nor the sensuous-lyrical,
nor the joyous buffo; it was severe as an old masterpiece, with veins
of buoyant liveliness threading it, and with sufficient distinctness
of melody to enrapture those who like to suck the sugarplums of sound.
He would indeed have favoured the public with more sweet things, but
Vittoria, for whom the opera was composed, and who had been at his elbow,
was young, and stern in her devotion to an ideal of classical music that
should elevate and never stoop to seduce or to flatter thoughtless
hearers. Her taste had directed as her voice had inspired the opera.
Her voice belonged to the order of the simply great voices, and was a
royal voice among them. Pure without attenuation, passionate without
contortion, when once heard it exacted absolute confidence. On this
night her theme and her impersonation were adventitious introductions,
but there were passages when her artistic pre-eminence and the sovereign