On the other hand, we are certain that much of the modern speculation was anticipated by these men.  For instance, Matheson calls pantomime “dumb music,” freed from melodic and harmonic forms.  The idea was advanced that music owes its rhythmic regularity and form to dancing, and architecture was called frozen music, a metaphor which, in later days, was considered such an original conception of Goethe and Schlegel.  This same inability of historians to bring their accounts up to the contemporary times may be noticed in the later works of Forkel (d. 1818) and Ambros (d. 1876).

Yet a third reason remains which tends to confuse the student as to what really constituted opera.  This is owing to the fact that there existed the very important element of improvisation, of which I shall speak later.

In order to see what Gluck, Weber, and Wagner had to break away from, let us look at the condition of opera at the beginning of the eighteenth century.  We remember that opera, having become emancipated from the Church long before any other music, developed apace, while instrumental (secular) music was still in its infancy.  In Germany, even the drama was neglected for its kindred form of opera; therefore, in studying its development, we may well understand why the dramatic stage considered the opera its deadly enemy.

The life of the German dramatist and actor of the first half of the eighteenth century was one of the direst hardship and poverty.  Eckhof, one of the greatest actors of his time, made his entry into Brunswick in a kind of miserable hay cart, in which, accompanied by his sick wife and several dogs, he had travelled over the rough roads.  To keep warm they had filled part of the wagon with straw.  The German actor and dramatist of that time often died in the hospital, despised by the richer classes; even the village priests and ministers refused to allow them to eat at their tables.  Their scenery rarely consisted of more than three rough pieces:  a landscape, a large room, and a peasant’s hut interior.  Many even had only two large cloths which were hung about the stage, one green, which was to be used when the scene was in the open air, and the other yellow, which was used to represent an interior.  Shakespeare’s “Poor Players” were certainly a stern reality in Germany.  In order to attract the public the plays had to consist for the most part of the grossest subjects imaginable, it being barely possible to smuggle some small portion of serious drama into the entertainment.

With opera, however, it was vastly different; opera troupes were met at the city gates by the royal or ducal carriages, and the singers were feted everywhere.  The prices paid them can only be compared with the salaries paid nowadays.  They were often ennobled, and the different courts quarrelled for the honour of their presence.  The accounts of the cost of the scenery used are incredible, amounting to many thousands of dollars for a single performance.