Notwithstanding criticisms, good, bad, and indifferent, the fact remains that _La Traviata_, like _Il Trovatore_, is still with us; and although we have long been warned that it is "declining in popularity, like other operas of its period,"[74] it defers its final departure! Why does the music continue to please the public?--the uneducated section let us say. How is it that the cantatrice and queen of song loves the part still? The answer is found in the natural and graceful character of Verdi's music, and in nothing else. To us it has always seemed a more original and satisfactory opera than _Il Trovatore_. More equal throughout in quality, it contains some of the most touching natural music that has ever been heard from the opera stage.
Spontaneous beauty and brilliant period were not wanting in _Les Vêpres Siciliennes_, or in _Un Ballo in Maschera_, albeit the master-mind appears disturbed. No Italian opera music could be more thoroughly Verdi's than the numbers, "_Giorno di Pianto_," a reflection of the _Donna è mobile_ canzone, and "_Ma se m'e forza perderti_" romanza in _Les Vêpres Siciliennes_ and _Un Ballo in Maschera_ respectively.
As has been already suggested, in _La Forza del Destino_ and _Don Carlos_ came unmistakable traces of a change in Verdi's manner. Although in these operas his habit of portraying human passions at their strongest pitch--in their noblest and sometimes their basest moods--still remains, Verdi's mature or Third period works embody to the fullest extent all that was generating in his mind nine years previously. _Aïda_ in form and conception is clearly based upon _La Forza del Destino_ and _Don Carlos_. Strikingly successful as the master has been with his First and Second period operas, they were not productions that reflected the fullest power of the high-minded musician. Profitable financially they had indeed proved to their composer; but they did not take Italian art one great step onwards. Verdi was keenly sensible of this. The desire to achieve something that would really advance his country's art taking possession of him, therefore, and what was more, finding grand, speedy expression at a time of life when most successful men seek repose--all this was, indeed, most admirable and artist-like.