earth at midnight, and assemble upon the highway attired in all their bridal finery.  From midnight until dawn they wheel their wild dances and watch for their faithless lovers.  If one of the latter happen to pass, he is beguiled into the magic circle, and in the grasp of the relentless Wilis is whirled round and round until he sinks expiring upon the ground.  In Puccini’s opera, the scene is laid in the Black Forest.  The characters are three in number—–­ Anna, her fiance Robert, and her father Wilhelm Wulf.  The first act opens with the betrothal of the lovers.  After the usual festivities Robert departs for Mayence, whither he has to go to claim an inheritance.  Six months elapse between the first and second acts.  Robert has fallen into the toils of an abandoned woman, and is still at Mayence; Anna has died of a broken heart.  The second act opens with two orchestral movements, ‘L’Abbandono,’ which describes the funeral of Anna, and ‘La Tregenda,’ the dance of the Wilis.  Robert now appears, torn by remorse, and pours forth his unavailing regrets.  But the hour of repentance is past.  Anna and her attendant Wilis rush on.  The unfortunate man, in a kind of hypnotic trance, is drawn into their circling dance.  They whirl him round and round in ever wilder and more fantastic gambols, until he drops lifeless upon the ground, and the avenging spirits disappear with a Hosanna of triumph.  There is little attempt at local colour in ‘Le Villi,’ but the music is full of imaginative power.  In the purely orchestral parts of the work the composer seems to have escaped from convention altogether, and has written music instinct with weird suggestion and unearthly force.

Puccini’s next opera, ‘Edgar’ (1889), was a failure, but in ’Manon Lescaut’ (1893) he once more achieved success.  His treatment of the Abbe Prevost’s romance, as may well be imagined, differs in toto from that of Massenet.  The libretto, in the first place, is laid out upon an entirely different plan.  It consists of a string of detached scenes with but little mutual connection, which, without some previous knowledge of the story, would be barely comprehensible.  The first act deals with the meeting of the lovers at Amiens and their flight to Paris.  In the second act we find Manon installed as the mistress of Geronte di Lavoir, surrounded by crowds of admirers.  Des Grieux penetrates to her apartment, and after a scene of passionate upbraiding persuades her to fly with him.  But before they can depart they are interrupted by the entrance of Manon’s irate protector, who, in revenge for her faithlessness, summons the police and consigns her to St. Lazare.  The third act shows the quay at Havre, and the embarkation of the filles de joie for New Orleans; and the last act, which takes place in America, is one long duet between Manon and Des Grieux, ending with Manon’s death.  Puccini looked at the story of Manon through Italian spectacles.  His power of characterisation