He attains this result by the simplicity and truth he knows how to stamp on dramatic melodies." This is what Richard Wagner said about _La Juive_ in 1842.
Fortunately we no longer demand that operas be mythological, for if we did we should have to condemn the famous Russian operas and that is out of the question.

However, the method of treatment is still in dispute and this question is involved.

One method of treatment is admitted and another is not and it is extremely difficult to tell what is what.
I am now going to do a little special pleading for my _Henri VIII_, which, it would seem, is not in the proper manner.

Not that I want to defend the music or to protest against the criticisms it has inspired, for that is not done.

But I may, perhaps, be permitted to speak of the piece itself and to tell how the music was adapted to it.
According to the critics it would seem that the whole of _Henri VIII_ is superficial and without depth, _en facade_; that the souls of the characters are not revealed, and that the King, at first all sugary sweetness, suddenly becomes a monster without any preparation for, or explanation of, the change.
In this connection let us consider _Boris Godounof_, for there is a historical drama suited to its music.