I have heard a similar effect produced by Herr Niemann and Madame Lehmann, but could not convince myself that it was not an extremely venturesome experiment.  Madame Schroeder-Devrient saw the beginning of the modern methods of dramatic expression, and it is easy to believe that a sudden change like that so well defined by Wagner, made with her sweeping voice and accompanied by her plastic and powerful acting, was really thrilling; but, I fancy, nevertheless, that only Beethoven and the intensity of feeling which pervades the scene saved the audience from a disturbing sense of the incongruity of the performance.

[Sidenote:  Early forms.]

[Sidenote:  The dialogue of the Florentines.]

The development which has taken place in the recitative has not only assisted in elevating opera to the dignity of a lyric drama by saving us from alternate contemplation of the two spheres of ideality and reality, but has also made the factor itself an eloquent vehicle of dramatic expression.  Save that it had to forego the help of the instruments beyond a mere harmonic support, the stilo rappresentativo, or musica parlante, as the Florentines called their musical dialogue, approached the sustained recitative which we hear in the oratorio and grand opera more closely than it did the recitative secco.  Ever and anon, already in the earliest works (the “Eurydice” of Rinuccini as composed by both Peri and Caccini) there are passages which sound like rudimentary melodies, but are charged with vital dramatic expression.  Note the following phrase from Orpheus’s monologue on being left in the infernal regions by Venus, from Peri’s opera, performed A.D. 1600, in honor of the marriage of Maria de’ Medici to Henry IV. of France: 

[Sidenote:  An example from Peri.]

[Music illustration: 

    E voi, deh per pie-ta, del mio mar-ti-re
    Che nel mi-se-ro cor di-mo-ra e-ter-no,
    La-cri-ma-te al mio pian-to om-bre d’in-fer-no!]

[Sidenote:  Development of the arioso.]

[Sidenote:  The aria supplanted.]

[Sidenote:  Music and action.]

Out of this style there grew within a decade something very near the arioso, and for all the purposes of our argument we may accept the melodic devices by which Wagner carries on the dialogue of his operas as an uncircumscribed arioso superimposed upon a foundation of orchestral harmony; for example, Lohengrin’s address to the swan, Elsa’s account of her dream.  The greater melodiousness of the recitativo stromentato, and the aid of the orchestra when it began to assert itself as a factor of independent value, soon enabled this form of musical conversation to become a reflector of the changing moods and passions of the play, and thus the value of the aria, whether considered as a solo, or in its composite form as duet, trio, quartet, or ensemble, was lessened.