itself to-day! It is difficult to realise that the modern light musical works for the stage are related to the masterpieces of Offenbach, Sullivan and Strauss; and yet the change has come about gradually.

After The Mikado there were Erminie and Poor Jonathan and Robin Hood, and only lately followed the English musical comedy and the burlesque. Can public taste have so degenerated as to demand pieces of the calibre of The Silver Slipper in preference to the kind of a generation ago? It is improbable that the public have made a deliberate choice. A more reasonable explanation of the evolutionary phenomenon is the inconstancy of the general public on whose favour this genre of entertainment is mainly dependent for its existence. They have an insatiable desire for something new. Novelty is the bait with which they are best tempted. And so they are drawn on from one year to the next, never turning back, never regretting, never thinking on the things that are past. If they could be induced to pause and survey in retrospect the course events have taken, a change of front might be looked for. If the public at large are properly prepared for it, there can be no doubt of the successful issue of an extensive revival of operetta.

The experiment of re-establishing opéra bouffe was attempted last year by one of our theatrical managers, but its comparative failure does not necessarily prove the case hopeless. The productions were quite inadequate. Old-time theatre-goers who retain fond memories of opéra bouffe in the days of Tostée, Aimée and Aujac, and who went to these performances filled with pleasant reminiscences, must have been rudely disappointed. But those of the younger generation who attended them probably received some hint of the fascination exercised by Offenbach and those other unequalled purveyors of light refreshment. in the days gone by. At least, to any thoughtful person it must have occurred that the breath of life is still there, requiring only to be stirred to make revivification complete.

To say that opéra bouffe is a species of comic opera is to give an explanation in the manner of Lewis Carroll: "For the snark is a boojum, you see." The term comic opera is itself ill defined. It embraces practically all the light musical

works written for the stage except the Italian opera buffo, which is generally classed with grand opera because of the composers' prestige. Operetta, opéra bouffe, musical comedy, burlesque-all come within the broad genus comic opera. French opéra bouffe is a type that originated in the middle of the nineteenth century. It was the result of an endeavour to catch the essence of the popular taste of the day and crystallise it. By the genius of one man it was carried to a definite point and given a distinct and characteristic stamp. Offenbach was not only the first to bring to the treatment of burlesque the methods of composers of more serious dramatic pieces, but his opéra bouffes represent the best that has been produced in this peculiarly French style of work.

Musical critics are poor prophets. So, although they shook their heads when Paris took hold of Offenbach and his music, it is not surprising to find that their predictions of short-lived success were wrong. Offenbach was of German-Jewish extraction, and was born at Cologne in 1819. He gave no signs of musical precocity. His father, cantor of the synagogue, and his elder brother were musicians of humble achievement, and Jacques was taught the violoncello with the expectation that he would follow in their steps. But he was more ambitious, and, dissatisfied with the local forecast, he early went to Paris, the Mecca of art life. This was in 1842. As yet, he had no definite aims and was compelled to make the usual struggle for existence. For a year or two he studied at the Conservatoire, then under the rigorous régime of Cherubini. But thorough bass and counterpoint were not to his liking, and impatient of study, made a record by no means brilliant. He had, however, attained a fair degree of proficiency on the 'cello. He played this instrument at the Opéra Comique, and later, in 1848, became leader of the orchestra of the Théâtre Français. In this way he picked up much that was useful to him as a composer, a rôle he soon after attempted. He first set to music some chansonettes, parodies on La Fontaine's fables; and they were sufficiently successful to gain him the good will of the music publishers. publishers. Next, a short piece, Pepito, was produced at the Opéra Comique in

1853, but it attracted scarcely any attention. Offenbach was trying his hand and feeling the popular pulse at the same time. For it was evidently his aim to write what the general public wanted. He felt no mission and made no pretence to high ideals. Art for art's sake was never his creed. What he craved was the favour of the many, and he set himself frankly to win it. He had an immense fund of vanity mixed with selfconfidence, and when the theatrical managers did not at once open their doors to him, he hired a small theatre of his own in the Champs Elysées, and wrote for it a number of one-act pieces of slight musical texture. It was a daring thing to do, but approved by the result. The Parisians, always eager for new palatable dishes, were soon attracted. After the music-hall farces and the ditties of the café chantant type with which they had been satiated, these trifles proved piquant and refreshing. Le Mariage aux Lanternes, Le Chanson de Fortunio, Une Nuit Blanche and Les Deux Aveugles are among the best of them.

Having obtained applause to his heart's content, Offenbach was stimulated to further efforts, and with Orphée aux Enfers he struck the vein which was to furnish so rich a lode of ore. This was produced in 1855 at another and more commodious theatre, called the Bouffes Parisiens. Paris, fully alive to the possibilities of the new genré of entertainment, flocked to the place in large and enthusiastic numbers. Offenbach was the idol of the hour. The ill-defined visions of the young German immigrant had become golden realities. And now, having courted and won his public, he was able to lead them whither he would. Everything he wrote was certain to be warmly received. At first, musicians too saw in his music, if not the spark of genius, a sparkle of something akin to it. Rossini, more than half serious, dubbed him the Mozart of the Champs Elysées. His fame soon spread through Europe and America. Companies were organised and dedicated to the performance of the works which his facile pen threw out one after another with breath-taking rapidity. La Belle Hélène, Barbe Bleu, La Grande Duchesse, Geneviève de Brabant, La Princesse de Trébizonde, La Périchole, Les Brigands-to name but a few,

the best known-were all written in a short space of time. In twenty-five. years he composed an almost incredible number of pieces. The Opéra Comique, from which foreigners were usually barred, and the Académie were opened to him. At the latter place, a pantomime ballet, Le Papillon, achieved some success. From the serious-minded among

musicians and critics there now came remonstrance. They saw in Offenbach but a clever musical demagogue who was in danger of being taken too seriously. His first efforts had seemed promising; but now he was confessedly writing for popular favour, and his success in capturing it only increased the chorus of dispraise -which, truth to tell, neither troubled Offenbach nor affected his popularity. In 1866, he gave up the management of the Bouffes Parisiens, and his works were produced at a number of different theatres in Paris, their drawing powers apparently undiminished. The decade between 1860 and 1870 was his most fertile period.

In 1876, the year of the Philadelphia Exposition, Offenbach came to America. where his operas had enjoyed an immense vogue ever since 1867, when Bateman's troupe, headed by Tostée, brought out La Grande Duchesse. He gave concerts at Gilmore's Garden in New York, and also conducted some of the performances of the Aimée Opera Company. In Philadelphia a special Offenbach garden was built. His visit, however, cannot be considered one of the crowning triumphs of his career. But it helped to restore a fortune somewhat shattered by an ill-advised theatrical speculation. He died in 1880, at work, like Meyerbeer, on his most ambitious and cherished effort. It was an opéra comique, Les Contes d'Hoffman, given with brilliant success the following year.

Offenbach first modelled himself on Auber, and in the chic and piquancy of some of his melodies was scarcely his inferior. His little one-act comediettas are in their way charming. Naively simple, joyously melodious and sparkling with vivacity, their appeal is direct and the response immediate. He must indeed be jaded and hard to please who can resist the bustling gaiety and unpretentious good humour of Le Mariage aux Lanternes or Le Chanson de Fortunio.

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fetching melody in the composer's best vein, set to the poem of De Musset, commencing "Si vous croyez je vais dire" runs through the latter. It is curious that this transplanted German should strive with one of the most intimately French composers, on his own ground, with so much success. But environment had completely changed Offenbach. He went to Paris at an age when surroundings make their deepest effect and he became thoroughly Gallicised. In the field of opéra bouffe, essentially a product of the French soil and the Second Empire, he was and remains facile princeps.

With all its faults of taste, style and construction, Offenbach's music is real art product. Often marred as they are by crudities and trivial effects, nevertheless, his opéras bouffes command recognition from musicians. The condemnation they once received from the latter has been gradually lessened, as a clearer perspective made plain their merits; although there still survives among certain classes the prejudice with which art works in great popular favour are so often viewed. For example, those who desire to be thought musically cultured commonly affect to despise the soldiers' chorus in Faust and the Toreador song from Carmen, simply because they are so universally admired by hoi polloi. In the case of Offenbach, too, the reaction which follows upon the high tide of popularity has in part caused his present effacement. But the opéras bouffes have that in them that will survive temporary neglect. What are their claims to recognition? In the first place, Offenbach was distinctly original. When he threw off the influence of Auber his music lost something in grace and refinement, but it became Offenbachian. Even in its weakest portions it bears the unmistakable impress. It is rollicking, melodious, irresistible. It is as genuine and unaffected as folk-music. Through it all, in a French translation, breathes the Epicurean spirit. What especially appealed to French taste was the wit and diablerie, of which it is brim full. Offenbach's caricatures are wonderfully clever, and no race is quicker than the French to appreciate humour of this kind. Gluck, Meyerbeer, Boieldieu and other composers were hit off to a dot. Nothing escaped his irreverent touch. The gods were brought down from Olympus and

made to cut capers for the delectation of the audience. The most serious things in life he turned to comedy, and so fertile was his wit, so exquisite his humour, they could not give offence. The censor must needs laugh while he condemned. Ingenious as were his librettists, Meilhac and Halévy, in devising a comic situation, the music always accentuated and gave point to it. Where their ideas were vulgar or suggestive, they were rendered a hundred times more so by the composer. Ethically indeed, there is a great deal to condemn in Offenbach, who was largely responsible for the improprieties, to give them no worse name, which abound in his works. But in criticising him on this score, one is merely criticising the Second Empire, the gaiety, frivolity and immorality of which is all faithfully reflected in these buffoneries musicales. Louis Ehlert, a German musical critic and teacher of distinction, wrote of Offenbach: "What he produced was but Parisian life in all its decomposition, represented with the irresistible facetiousness of an accessory in the guilt."

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Another characteristic of Offenbach's genius which appeals strongly to the musician is his remarkable faculty of suiting the music to the text-a gift denied to composers of a much higher rank. example of this musical adaptability occurs in Barbe Bleue, where the man bewails the death of his various wives in pathetic accents, which gradually change into lively expressions of glee at the thought of a new victim, the song ending in a melody of the gayest description. Such pieces as the snoring chorus from Orphée, and the toothache song from the Princesse de Trébizonde may be further instanced. It is not merely in imitative passages that the composer shows his skill, but in actually compassing a mood. Contrast the simple pathos of the ballad "Dites lui" from La Grande Duchesse with the mock sorrow expressed in Prince Paul's song from the same opera. How much more telling than any words are the bars that introduce Orestes and his companions in the first act of La Belle Hélène! Instances of this felicitous knack of characterisation might be multiplied. It indicates talent of a far higher order than that of the musical comedy writers of to-day.

Offenbach was melodically fecund.

The large number of his works extant attest this fact. As may easily be inferred, such astonishing facility of utterance did not go hand in hand with the best artistic finish. There are faults of construction which the merest amateur would not have allowed to pass uncorrected. Much of the music is banal, and the best is inextricably bound up with the worst. It is quite a common occurrence to find a melody of fresh and simple fragrance or one of irresistible rhythmic swing, sparkling and foaming over with brilliancy, followed by a flippant tune utterly vulgar and worthless. It is idle to try to account for these irregularities. One can only point out the fact that they exist. The composer never hesitated to borrow a phrase or repeat himself in the coolest fashion; but with an ingenuity worthy of a better cause he generally concealed the defects beautifully. His music has character, and in the narrow limits. afforded by his operas it expresses considerable variety. There is appealing senti

ment in "Dites lui," already referred to, and still more in the "Letter Song" from La Perichole. Vert-Vert, one of the very best of the operas, contains a barcarolle quite equal in charm of style and refinement to the music of Sir Arthur Sullivan. The use of a pedal point (if the technicality be pardoned), of which the English composer was so fond, helps the comparison. A duet, "Faut il en faire," also has some of the characteristics of Sullivan's work. Generally speaking, however, Offenbach's merits are distinct, and lie in another direction from those of his English successor. He excels in the dash-and-go type of melody, the rollicking canaille rhythm, such as in the finale to La Grande Duchesse, the song of the regiment in Vert-Vert and the "Bruscambille" song from La Jolie Parfumeuse. The manner in which he follows up one melody with another in his finales and keeps the music going is sometimes masterly. There are constant melodic and harmonic surprises and changes of rhythm, creating a steady