Pollione, who has been intercepted in the temple, is brought before
her. Love is still stronger than resentment with her. In a very
dramatic scena ("In mia mano alfin tu sei") she informs him he is in
her power, but she will let him escape if he will renounce Adalgisa
and leave the country. He declares death would be preferable;
whereupon she threatens to denounce Adalgisa. Pity overcomes anger,
however. She snatches the sacred wreath from her brow and declares
herself the guilty one. Too late Pollione discovers the worth of the
woman he has abandoned, and a beautiful duet ("Qual cor tradisti")
forms the closing number. She ascends the funeral pyre with Pollione,
and in its flames they are purged of earthly crime. It is a memorable
fact in the history of this opera, that on its first performance it
was coldly received, and the Italian critics declared it had no
vitality; though no opera was ever written in which such intense
dramatic effect has been produced with simple melodic force, and no
Italian opera score to-day is more living or more likely to last than
that of Norma.


LA SONNAMBULA.

"La Sonnambula," an opera in two acts, words by Romani, was first
produced in Milan, March 6, 1831, with the following cast:--

AMINA Mme. PASTA.
ELVINO Sig. RUBINI.
RODOLFO Sig. MARIANO.
LISA Mme. TOCCANI.

It was brought out in the same year in Paris and London, and two years