7 JANUARY 1871, Page 22

Messrs. Novelle publish an edition of Beethoven's opera of Fidelio,

a. volume which is to be the first of a projected series of standard operas, Anber's Fra Diavolo and Mozart's Don Giovanni being announced as its immediate successors. The series is under the editorship of Madame Macfarren, who supplies an English translation of the libretto,—an admirable feature, in the present writer's judgment, he being aProtest- ant iu such matters, and objecting to Italian as the universal language of opera music, as he would to Latin as the universal language of wor- ship. The volume is a handsome octavo, well printed, with good paper. The price is remarkably moderate—two hundred and sixty pages of the best music for half-a-crown. Messrs. Novello's enterprise deserves and can scarcely fail to attain success.