It is impossible as yet to speak with any degree of certainty as to Verdi’s probable influence upon posterity.  With all his genius he was perhaps hardly the man to found a school.  He was not, like his great contemporary Wagner, one of the world’s great revolutionists.  His genius lay not in overturning systems and in exploring paths hitherto untrodden, but in developing existing materials to the highest conceivable pitch of beauty and completeness.  His music has nothing to do with theories, it is the voice of nature speaking in the idiom of art.

Of the composers who modelled their style upon Verdi’s earlier manner, the most important were Petrella (1813-1877); Apolloni (1822-1889), the composer of ‘L’Ebreo,’ a melodrama of a rough and ready description, which was produced in 1855 and went the round of all the theatres of Italy; and Carlos Gomez (1839-1896), a Brazilian composer, whose opera, ‘Il Guarany,’ was performed in London in 1872.  In him Verdi’s vigour often degenerated into mere brutality, but his work is by no means without power, though he has little claim to distinction of style.  Of the many operas written by Marchetti (1835-1902) only one, ‘Ruy Blas,’ founded upon Victor Hugo’s play, achieved anything like permanent success.  In form and general outline it owes much to Verdi’s influence, but the vein of tender melody which runs through it strikes a note of individual inspiration.  It was performed in London in 1877.

Arrigo Boito, to whom the University of Cambridge accorded the honour of an honorary degree in 1893, has written but one opera, ‘Mefistofele,’ but his influence upon modern Italian music must be measured in inverse ratio to his productive power.  When ‘Mefistofele’ was originally produced in 1868, Verdi’s genius was still in the chrysalis stage, and the novelty and force of Boito’s music made ‘Mefistofele,’ even in its fall—­for the first performance was a complete failure—­a rallying point for the Italian disciples of truth and sincerity in music.  In 1875 it was performed in a revised and abbreviated form, and since then has taken its place among the masterpieces of modern Italy.  Boito’s libretto reproduces the atmosphere of Goethe’s drama far more successfully than any other of the many attempts to fit ‘Faust’ to the operatic stage.  It is a noble poem, but from the merely scenic point of view it has many weaknesses.  Its principal failing is the lack of one continuous thread of interest.  The opera is merely a succession of episodes, each nicely calculated to throw fresh light upon the character of Faust, but by no means mutually connected.  The prologue opens in Heaven, where the compact is made regarding the soul of Faust.  The next scene shows the Kermesse, changing to Faust’s study, where Mephistopheles appears and the contract is signed which binds him to Faust’s service.  We then pass to the garden scene, in which Faust is shown as Margaret’s lover.  Then come the Witches’ Sabbath on the summit of the Brocken, and the prison