Triumphs and wonders of the 19th century, the true mirror of a phenomenal era, a volume of original, entertaining and instructive historic and descriptive writings, showing the many and marvellous achievements which distinguish an hundred years of material, intellectual, social and moral progress .. . mpaniment, so that Wagners method was radically wrong. Independent of this, he attempted toinfuse life into the Nibelungen series,whereas he adopted a tangled and child-ish fairy-story that was more absurd thanimpressive. The later Wagner operas,which the composer calls music dra-mas. are tiresom
Triumphs and wonders of the 19th century, the true mirror of a phenomenal era, a volume of original, entertaining and instructive historic and descriptive writings, showing the many and marvellous achievements which distinguish an hundred years of material, intellectual, social and moral progress .. . mpaniment, so that Wagners method was radically wrong. Independent of this, he attempted toinfuse life into the Nibelungen series,whereas he adopted a tangled and child-ish fairy-story that was more absurd thanimpressive. The later Wagner operas,which the composer calls music dra-mas. are tiresome and monotonous tosuch a degree that, with all the remarka-ble talent of Wagner, they may neverbecome popular, and may be eventuallylaid on the shelf, to be regarded in thefuture as musical curios. The musicians of the United Statesare steadily developing, and for so younga country we have a large number ofcomposers of first-class ability, such asMacdowell, Foote, Lang, Chadwick, Gil-christ, and many others who have pro-duced important compositions. In opera the American composers havedone nothing, for the reason that there are no opportunities for the produc-tion of such works. If there were, we should soon have many operatic com-posers, and should speedily take high rank in the lyric SAUNDRItS (TSHMAN. II. DRAMA. The theatre of the latter part of the eenturyshows a remarkable advance,in certain respects, over the theatre of the past, which consisted of a star,an inferior company, poor scenery and appointments, et cetera; whereasto-day there are many more really good actors and actresses, the theatres arefar more comfortable and artistic, the scenery, costumes and details arebeautiful and correct. We have no Mrs. Siddons, no Kemble, no Rachel, no Talma ; but we are con-fident that the actors and actresses of to-day are like the theatre of to-day,—they have more finish, and the results, while they may not rise to the plane ofthe school of Shakespeare, are
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookidtri, booksubjectinventions
