It was not until _Les Vêpres Siciliennes_ and _Don Carlos_ that we see a determined _détour_ from the accepted Italian lyric-drama lines. _Don Carlos_ was modelled after the style of French Grand opera as formed by Rossini and Donizetti, and became Verdi-cum-Meyerbeer. The result was a failure and a sorry mixture--something of a musical salad, the ingredients of which formed "a poor concoction calculated to derange the strongest musical digestion." The unadulterated Verdi, with the old familiar _bel canto_, was far better than the adulterated one. Those scenes where the established art-forms had been deserted in order to give vent to orchestral painting or new combinations were unanimously declared to be the failings of the operas.
With the important operas which have adorned the later years of Verdi's life--his Third period works--the master has undoubtedly presented his grandest aspect. _Aïda_, _Otello_, and _Falstaff_ are a tremendous art advance upon anything that Verdi had accomplished before. These are operas which will keep Italian opera alive, if that effete institution can be preserved by mortal means. In these compositions Verdi reasserts himself, and awakes to an altogether new and vaster sense of what his country's opera should be, as well as what he himself could make it. Familiarised as the public had been with _Tannhäuser_ and _Lohengrin_, it expected, in fresh works for the stage, a more logical and dramatic consistency. Any new Italian opera required merit as a drama, and needed to be something more than a series of pretty tunes. _Aïda_ was the full enunciation of Verdi's new principles. In this work were discarded such orthodox processes as the splitting up of the acts into recitatives, which meant a gain in dramatic action and continuity in the play. The old-fashioned forms, the _aria d'entratà_, the _cabaletta_, and _canzonetta_, were discontinued for less continued melody, piecemeal tunes, lending quite a different aspect to the complete work. The interest in the declamatory music considerably increased, and all was so welded together that a much more satisfactory and entertaining whole was the result. The orchestration was decidedly new for Verdi, partaking, as it did, of the gorgeous Meyerbeer rather than the Wagner character. There was much picture-painting both in the abstract and the concrete. The evident intent was to paint or colour instrumentally; to illustrate the text orchestrally, and to impart not only geographical, but local, personal colour. This was essentially what the world was pleased to call "Wagnerian"--hence the outcry and the allegation that Verdi had turned "Wagnerite." The fact was, that since writing _Don Carlos_, _Les Vêpres Siciliennes_, and _La Forza del Destino_, Verdi had become more "Germanised," although the term must not be taken to imply that he was less the Italian, or any the more a copyist or impressionist. His state was owing not to Wagner's nor to Meyerbeer's influence and model any more than to Weber's, but to the ambition of the master himself. If Meyerbeer could employ the orchestra slavishly and make it so important and successful a feature in the Franco-German operatic ensemble, why should not he, Verdi, do as much for Italian art?