the waves had nearly been set on fire. The audience, not giving the
troops due credit for their prudence, found no little fault with
their compliance with the law of self-preservation. In the
following representations of the opera the bridge and basket men
which, en passant (or en restant rather), had cost fifty pounds,
were omitted." [Footnote: Op. cit., p. 160] When "Moise" was
prepared in Paris 45,000 francs were sunk in the Red Sea.

I shall recur in a moment to the famous preghiera but, having
Ebers' book before me, I see an anecdote so delightfully
illustrative of the proverbial spirit of the lyric theatre that I
cannot resist the temptation to repeat it. In the revised "Moses"
made for Paris there occurs a quartet beginning "Mi manca la voce"
("I lack voice") which Chorley describes as "a delicious round."
Camporese had to utter the words first and no sooner had she done
so than Ronzi di Begnis, in a whisper, loud enough to be heard by
her companion, made the comment "E vero!" ("True!")--"a remark,"
says Mr. Ebers, "which produced a retort courteous somewhat more
than verging on the limit of decorum, though not proceeding to the
extremity asserted by rumor, which would have been as inconsistent
with propriety as with the habitual dignity and self-possession of
Camporese's demeanor."

Somebody, I cannot recall who, has said that the success of "Dal
tuo stellato" set the fashion of introducing prayers into operas.
Whether this be true or not, it is a fact that a prayer occurs in
four of the operas which Rossini composed for the Paris Grand Opera
and that the formula is become so common that it may be set down as
an operatic convention, a convention, moreover, which even the
iconoclast Wagner left undisturbed. One might think that the