They pour out piercing, unendurably sweet cavatinas above the fragrance of bloom and musky smell of fruit.

When Logotheti reached the door of the drawing-room, Margaret was finishing Rosina's Cavatina from the Barbiere di Siviglia in a perfect storm of fireworks, having transposed the whole piece two notes higher to suit her own voice, for it was originally written for a mezzo-soprano.

SECOND TOAD That superannuated tenor quavering out his cavatinas to the glory of minor poetry and the edification of fogydom!

The cavatina Una voce poco fa gave me inconceivable delight.

La Muette is being played, we will say; the famous cavatina, the slumber-song, is heard beneath a transparent sky, vaulted like the real thing and giving the impression of boundless space.

"Sometimes in the midst of a cavatina or a pas-de-deux, a bell with a sharp, shrill, excoriating sound, will be heard; it is the bell della misericordia.

In addition, this weakness brought about by the desire for large congregations had quickly resulted in the adoption of songs borrowed from Italian operas, of low cavatinas and indecent quadrilles played in churches converted to boudoirs and surrendered to stage actors whose voices resounded aloft, their impurity tainting the tones of the holy organ.