Raff completed the score of Die Eifersüchtigen (‘The Jealous Ones’) a few weeks before his death. He wrote the libretto himself and was scrupulous in differentiating his characters through their music and adopting a precise formal construction. With tight organisational control, a strong grasp of musical and dramatic relationships, and speech melodies based entirely on German prosody, Raff’s final opera is marked by clarity, concision and economy of means.