'The Troubadour,' which
was produced a few years later, failed completely. The story is
thoroughly dull, and completely failed to inspire the musician. Sir
Alexander Mackenzie has recently completed the score of an opera on the
subject of Dickens's 'Cricket on the Hearth,' the production of which is
awaited with much interest.
During the closing years of the nineteenth century the fortunes of
English opera, never very brilliant, reached a lower point than at any
time in our musical history. The Carl Rosa opera company fell upon evil
days, and was compelled to restrict its energies almost entirely to the
performance of stock operas, while at Covent Garden the opportunities
afforded to native composers were few and far between. In these
disheartening circumstances it is not surprising that English musicians
were not encouraged to devote their powers to a form of art in which so
little prospect of success could be entertained. What they might have
achieved under happier conditions the operatic career of Sir Charles
Stanford suggests in the most convincing manner. Stanford is a composer
whose natural endowment conspicuously fits him for operatic work, and he
has grasped such opportunities as have been vouchsafed to him with
almost unvarying success. Had he been blessed with a more congenial
environment he would have taken rank with the foremost operatic
composers of his time.
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