and Bartolo brings in his ward to receive her music lesson.  Here, according to tradition, there stood in the original score a trio which was lost with the overture.  Very welcome has this loss appeared to the Rosinas of a later day, for it has enabled them to introduce into the “lesson scene” music of their own choice, and, of course, such as showed their voices and art to the best advantage.  Very amusing have been the anachronisms which have resulted from these illustrations of artistic vanity, and diverting are the glimpses which they give of the tastes and sensibilities of great prime donne.  Grisi and Alboni, stimulated by the example of Catalani (though not in this opera), could think of nothing nobler than to display their skill by singing Rode’s Air and Variations, a violin piece.  This grew hackneyed, but, nevertheless, survived till a comparatively late day.  Bosio, feeling that variations were necessary, threw Rode’s over in favor of those on “Gia della mente involarmi”—­a polka tune from Alary’s “A Tre Nozze.”  Then Mme. Gassier ushered in the day of the vocal waltz—­Venzano’s, of amiable memory.  Her followers have not yet died out, though Patti substituted Arditi’s “Il Bacio” for Venzano’s; Mme. Sembrich, Strauss’s “Voce di Primavera,” and Mme. Melba, Arditi’s “Se saran rose.”  Mme. Viardot, with a finer sense of the fitness of things, but either forgetful or not apprehensive of the fate which befell her father at the first performance of the opera in Rome, introduced a Spanish song.  Mme. Patti always kept a ready repertory for the scene, with a song in the vernacular of the people for whom she was singing to bring the enthusiasm to a climax and a finish:  “Home, Sweet Home” in New York and London, “Solovei” in St. Petersburg.  Usually she began with the bolero from “Les Vepres Siciliennes,” or the shadow dance from “Dinorah.”  Mme. Seinbrich, living in a period when the style of song of which she and Mme. Melba are still the brightest exemplars, is not as familiar as it used to be when they were children, also found it necessary to have an extended list of pieces ready at hand to satisfy the rapacious public.  She was wont at first to sing Proch’s Air and Variations, but that always led to a demand for more, and whether she supplemented it with “Ah! non giunge,” from “La Sonnambula,” the bolero from “The Sicilian Vespers,” “O luce di quest anima,” from “Linda,” or the vocalized waltz by Strauss, the applause always was riotous, and so remained until she sat down to the pianoforte and sang Chopin’s “Maiden’s Wish,” in Polish, to her own accompaniment.  As for Mme. Melba, not to be set in the shade simply because Mme. Sembrich is almost as good a pianist as she is a singer, she supplements Arditi’s waltz or Massenet’s “Sevillana” with Tosti’s “Mattinata,” to which she also plays an exquisite accompaniment.