The Etoik du Nord has been performed every opera night
since its production last week, and the warmth of its reception is by no means abated, while its length is much lessened. The oftener this opera is heard, the more must the listener be struck with its very melodious character. When we first look into the score, wo find, such odd and seemingly capricious forms of rhythm, such multitudes of fiats and sharps arising from chromatic harmonies and enharmonic modulations, that it appears a mass of elaborate crudities. The per- former; too, find difficulty in learning it. They have no conventional beaten track to follow, but meet some stumblingblock almost in every line. But when they once can sing it fluently, and when we have listened. to it two or three times, we find it to be smooth, flowing, and simple in effect ; with a strength of dramatic expression caused by the very thing which made it seem difficult and obscure. It was tbo fashion for the Italians to say that Gluck had no melody ; but Rousseau, though a zealous Italian partisan, knew better. "No melody !" he said,—" it me semble que la melodic lui sort par toils lea pores." And the same thing may be said of the author of the Mode du Nord.
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