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If there are any new little books at Paris, pray bring them me. I have already Voltaire's 'Zelis dans le Bain', his 'Droit du Seigneur', and 'Olympie'. Do not forget to call once at Madame Monconseil's, and as often as you please at Madame du Pin's. Au revoir. BATH, November 24, 1763
His last valet was a big, foundered, short-winded fellow of fifty-five, who was incapable of running twenty paces; but, as he had been born at Bayonne, M. Gillenormand called him Basque. One day, a haughty cook, a cordon bleu, of the lofty race of porters, presented herself. "How much wages do you want a month?" asked M. Gillenormand. "Thirty francs." "What is your name?" "Olympie."
'This tragedy was the work of six days, he wrote to d'Alembert, enclosing Olympie. 'You should not have rested on the seventh, was d'Alembert's reply. But, on the whole, Voltaire's verses succeed in keeping up to a high level of mediocrity; they are the verses, in fact, of a very clever man. It is when his cleverness is out of its depth, that he most palpably fails.
I can't hear a note," was the impatient rejoinder. "Never mind," said the other; "come, and you will see something at all events." So the twain repaired to the theatre to hear Spontini's "Olympie." All went well till one of the overwhelming finales, which happened to be played that evening more fortissimo than usual. The patient turned around beaming with delight, exclaiming, "Doctor, I can hear."
If there are any new little books at Paris, pray bring them me. I have already Voltaire's 'Zelis dans le Bain', his 'Droit du Seigneur', and 'Olympie'. Do not forget to call once at Madame Monconseil's, and as often as you please at Madame du Pin's. Au revoir. BATH, November 24, 1763
'La Vestale' was followed in 1809 by 'Fernand Cortez, and in 1819 by 'Olympie, both of which were extremely successful, the latter in a revised form which was produced at Berlin in 1821. Spontini's operas are now no longer performed, but the influence which his music exercised upon men so different as Wagner and Meyerbeer makes his name important in the history of opera.
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