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Bononcini and Attilio Ariosti, his old acquaintances in Berlin, were also attracted by this new operatic venture to London, and their arrival was followed by a competition of a very novel character. The libretto of a new opera, "Muzio Scævola," was divided between the three composers. Attilio was to put the first act to music, Bononcini the second, and Handel the third.

He made some justifiable criticisms of the libretto of the last work, although he admitted that the composer had contrived to write beautiful passages. "We cannot praise Halévy too highly," he wrote, "for the firmness with which he resists every temptation, to which many of his contemporaries succumb, to steal easy applause by relying blindly on the talent of the singers.

His counsel, Maitre Marie, based his plea on a principle which I was said to have established myself, namely that the point of chief importance was not the melody, but the correct declamation of the words of the libretto, which obviously neither Roche nor Truinet could have ensured, seeing that neither of them understood German.

But he has never re-found the delicate and melodious purity of soul and youthful grace of his earlier work, which still shines out in Guntram, and is then effaced. Strauss has directed Wagner's dramas at Weimar since 1889. While breathing their atmosphere he turned his attention to the theatre, and wrote the libretto of his opera Guntram.

They interrupted, put questions, made comments, protested, argued, encouraged, exclaimed. Mr. Cane had brought pressman after pressman to interview Claude on the libretto scandal, as they called it. It seemed that Madame Sennier had made her libelous statement in a violent fit of temper, brought on by a bad rehearsal at the Metropolitan Opera House.

In the original libretto the song had its place in the first act, and indeed numerous changes have been made in the libretto since the opera first appeared; as in the original, Mireille dies in the arms of her lover, and Urias, Vincenzo's rival, is drowned in the Rhone.

The reason for this, he presumed, must lie in the subject-matter. I at once promised him that I would supply him with a libretto in which he would be able to introduce these and similar melodies to the greatest advantage.

In collaboration with Prince de Metternich, then Austrian ambassador at the court of the Tuileries, and an amateur musician of no mean order, he had written the libretto of a ballet called "Le Roi d'Yvetot."

Such opportunities as were presented to English musicians, during the latter part of the last century, of hearing their works sung upon the stage were principally due to his efforts. It is founded upon Victor Hugo's 'Notre Dame, and the libretto was written by T. Marzials and A. Randegger.

Clayton had visited Italy, and had brought back with him a collection of Italian songs; he got Peter Motteux to translate for him an old Italian opera libretto, and adapted these songs to it. How much of Arsinoe was Clayton's own work is not known; Burney speaks of the opera with nothing but contempt.