The music of ‘Rigoletto’ is on a very different plane from that of ‘Ernani.’  Verdi had become uneasy in the fetters of the cavatina-cabaletta tradition—­the slow movement followed by the quick—­which, since the day of Rossini, had ruled Italian opera with a rod of iron.  In ‘Rigoletto,’ although the old convention still survives, the composer shows a keen aspiration after a less trammelled method of expressing himself.  Rigoletto’s great monologue is a piece of declamation pure and simple, and as such struck a note till then unheard in Italy.  The whole of the last act is a brilliant example of Verdi’s picturesque power, combined with acute power of characterisation.  The Duke’s gay and lightsome canzone, the magnificent quartet, in which the different passions of four personages are contrasted and combined with such consummate art, and the sombre terrors of the tempest, touch a level of art which Verdi had not till then attained, nor was to reach again until the days of ‘Aida,’ twenty years later.

‘Il Trovatore’ (1853) is melodrama run mad.  The plot is terribly confused, and much of it borders on the incomprehensible, but the outline of it is as follows.  The mother of Azucena, a gipsy, has been burnt as a witch by order of the Count di Luna.  In revenge Azucena steals one of his children, whom she brings up as her own son under the name of Manrico.  Manrico loves Leonora, a lady of the Spanish Court, who is also beloved by his brother, the younger Count di Luna.  After various incidents Manrico falls into the Count’s hands, and is condemned to death.  Leonora offers her hand as the price of his release, which the Count accepts.  Manrico refuses liberty on these terms, and Leonora takes poison to escape the fulfilment of her promise.

The music of ‘Il Trovatore’ shows a sad falling off from the promise of ‘Rigoletto.’  Face to face with such a libretto, Verdi probably felt that refinement and characterisation were equally out of the question, and fell back on the coarseness of his earlier style.  ‘Il Trovatore’ abounds with magnificent tunes, but they are slung together with very little feeling for appropriateness.  There is a brutal energy about the work which has been its salvation, for of the higher qualities, which make a fitful appearance in ‘Rigoletto,’ there is hardly a trace.

‘La Traviata’ (1853) is an operatic version of Dumas’s famous play, ’La Dame aux Camellias.’  The sickly tale of the love and death of Marguerite Gauthier, here known as Violetta, is hardly an ideal subject for a libretto, and it says much for Verdi’s versatility that, after his excursions into transpontine melodrama, he was able to treat ‘drawing-room tragedy’ with success.  Alfredo Germont loves Violetta, the courtesan, and establishes himself with her in a villa outside Paris.  There his old father pays Violetta a visit, and, by representing that the matrimonial prospects of his daughter are injured by Violetta’s connection with Alfredo, induces