the strongest thing he has done yet.  The score is richer and more solid than that of any of his earlier works, and the orchestration shows no falling off in ingenuity and resource.  Melodically ‘Madama Butterfly’ is perhaps not so fresh or abundant as ‘La Boheme,’ but the composer’s touch is firmer and surer in handling dramatic situations.  ‘Madama Butterfly’ is unquestionably one of the most interesting and important operas of modern times, as it is one of the most attractive.  It has established Puccini more firmly than ever in the position of the leading operatic composer of the day.

The name of Pietro Mascagni is chiefly connected in the minds of opera-goers with ‘Cavalleria Rusticana,’ This work, which was produced in 1890, lifted its composer at once into popularity.  The story is founded upon one of Verga’s Sicilian tales.  Turiddu, a village Adonis, is beloved by the fair Lola.  He enlists as a soldier, and on his return from the wars finds that the fickle damsel has married Alfio, a carter.  He looks round him for fresh conquests, and his choice falls upon Santuzza.  This arouses all Lola’s latent coquetry, and she soon contrives to win him back to her side.  The deserted Santuzza appeals in vain to his love and pity.  He repulses her roughly, and in despair she tells Alfio the story of his wife’s inconstancy.  Alfio challenges Turiddu to mortal combat, and kills him as the curtain falls.  Squalid as the story is, it is full of life and movement, and has that simple directness which is essential to success.  The music is melodious, if not very original, and vigorous even to brutality.  Mascagni here shows a natural instinct for the theatre.  His method is often coarse, but his effects rarely miss their mark.  At its production ‘Cavalleria’ was absurdly overpraised, but it certainly is a work of promise.  Unfortunately the promise so far has not been fulfilled.  ‘L’Amico Fritz’ and ‘I Rantzau,’ two adaptations of novels by Erckmann-Chatrian, produced respectively in 1891 and 1892, have almost disappeared from the current repertory.  The first is a delicate little story of an old bachelor’s love for a pretty country girl, the second a village ’Romeo and Juliet,’ showing how an internecine feud between two brothers is ended by the mutual love of their children.  Mascagni’s melodramatic style was ill suited to idylls of this kind.  He drowned the pretty little stories in oceans of perfervid orchestration, and banged all the sentiment out of them with drums and cymbals.  Yet, in the midst of the desert of coarseness and vulgarity came oases of delicate fancy and imagination.  The ‘Cherry Duet’ in ‘L’Amico Fritz,’ and the Cicaleccio chorus in ‘I Rantzau,’ are models of refinement and finish, which are doubly delightful by reason of their incongruous environment.  Unfortunately such gems as these only make the coarseness of their setting the more conspicuous, and on the whole the sooner the world forgets about ‘L’Amico Fritz’ and ‘I Rantzau’ the better