CHAPTER XVII

TWO OPERAS BY WOLF-FERRARI

The composer's operas first sung in their original tongue in America,

First performances of "Le Donne Curiose," "Il Segreto di Susanna," "I

Giojelli della Madonna," "L'Amore Medico," Story and music of "Le Donne

Curiose," Methods and apparatus of Mozart's day, Wolf-Ferrari's

Teutonism, Goldoni paraphrased, Nicolai and Verdi, The German version

of "Donne Curiose," Musical motivi in the opera, Rameau's "La Poule,"

Cast of the first performance in New York, (footnote)--Naples and

opera, "I Giojelli della Madonna," et seq.--Erlanger's "Aphrodite,"

Neapolitan folksongs, Wolf-Ferrari's individuality, His "Vita Nuova,"

First performance in America of "I Giojelli,"

CHAPTER I

BIBLICAL OPERAS

Whether or not the English owe a grudge to their Lord Chamberlain for

depriving them of the pleasure of seeing operas based on Biblical

stories I do not know. If they do, the grudge cannot be a deep one, for

it is a long time since Biblical operas were in vogue, and in the case

of the very few survivals it has been easy to solve the difficulty and

salve the conscience of the public censor by the simple device of

changing the names of the characters and the scene of action if the

works are to be presented on the stage, or omitting scenery, costumes

and action and performing them as oratorios. In either case, whenever

this has been done, however, it has been the habit of critics to make

merry at the expense of my Lord Chamberlain and the puritanicalness of

the popular spirit of which he is supposed to be the official

embodiment, and to discourse lugubriously and mayhap profoundly on the

perversion of composers' purposes and the loss of things essential to

the lyric drama.

It may be heretical to say so, but is it not possible that Lord

Chamberlain and Critic have both taken too serious a view of the

matter? There is a vast amount of admirable material in the Bible

(historical, legendary or mythical, as one happens to regard it), which

would not necessarily be degraded by dramatic treatment, and which

might be made entertaining as well as edifying, as it has been made in

the past, by stage representation. Reverence for this material is

neither inculcated nor preserved by shifting the scene and throwing a

veil over names too transparent to effect a disguise. Moreover, when

this is done, there is always danger that the process may involve a

sacrifice of the respect to which a work of art is entitled on its

merits as such. Gounod, in collaboration with Barbier and Carre, wrote

an opera entitled "La Reine de Saba." The plot had nothing to do with

the Bible beyond the name of Sheba's Queen and King Solomon. Mr.

Farnie, who used to make comic operetta books in London, adapted the

French libretto for performance in English and called the opera

"Irene." What a title for a grand opera! Why not "Blanche" or

"Arabella"? No doubt such a thought flitted through many a careless

mind unconscious that an Irene was a Byzantine Empress of the eighth

century, who, by her devotion to its tenets, won beatification after

death from the Greek Church. The opera failed on the Continent as well

as in London, but if it had not been given a comic operetta flavor by

its title and association with the name of the excellent Mr. Farnie,

would the change in supposed time, place and people have harmed it?

A few years ago I read (with amusement, of course) of the metamorphosis

to which Massenet's "Herodiade" was subjected so that it might

masquerade for a brief space on the London stage; but when I saw the

opera in New York "in the original package" (to speak commercially), I

could well believe that the music sounded the same in London, though

John the Baptist sang under an alias and the painted scenes were

supposed to delineate Ethiopia instead of Palestine.

There is a good deal of nonsensical affectation in the talk about the

intimate association in the minds of composers of music, text,

incident, and original purpose. "Un Ballo in Maschera," as we see it

most often nowadays, plays in Nomansland; but I fancy that its music

would sound pretty much the same if the theatre of action were

transplanted back to Sweden, whence it came originally, or left in

Naples, whither it emigrated, or in Boston, to which highly

inappropriate place it was banished to oblige the Neapolitan censor. So

long as composers have the habit of plucking feathers out of their dead

birds to make wings for their new, we are likely to remain in happy and

contented ignorance of mesalliances between music and score, until they

are pointed out by too curious critics or confessed by the author. What

is present habit was former custom to which no kind or degree of stigma

attached. Bach did it; Handel did it; nor was either of these worthies

always scrupulous in distinguishing between meum and tuum when it came

to appropriating existing thematic material. In their day the merit of

individuality and the right of property lay more in the manner in which

ideas were presented than in the ideas themselves.

In 1886 I spent a delightful day with Dr. Chrysander at his home in

Bergedorf, near Hamburg, and he told me the story of how on one

occasion, when Keiser was incapacitated by the vice to which he was

habitually prone, Handel, who sat in his orchestra, was asked by him to

write the necessary opera. Handel complied, and his success was too

great to leave Keiser's mind in peace. So he reset the book. Before

Keiser's setting was ready for production Handel had gone to Italy.

Hearing of Keiser's act, he secured a copy of the new setting from a

member of the orchestra and sent back to Hamburg a composition based on

Keiser's melodies "to show how such themes ought to be treated." Dr.

Chrysander, also, when he gave me a copy of Bertati's "Don Giovanni"

libretto, for which Gazzaniga composed the music, told me that Mozart

had been only a little less free than the poet in appropriating ideas

from the older work.

One of the best pieces in the final scene of "Fidelio" was taken from a

cantata on the death of the emperor of Austria, composed by Beethoven

before he left Bonn. The melody originally conceived for the last

movement of the Symphony in D minor was developed into the finale of

one of the last string quartets. In fact the instances in which

composers have put their pieces to widely divergent purposes are

innumerable and sometimes amusing, in view of the fantastic belief that

they are guided by plenary inspiration. The overture which Rossini

wrote for his "Barber of Seville" was lost soon after the first

production of the opera. The composer did not take the trouble to write

another, but appropriated one which had served its purpose in an

earlier work. Persons ignorant of that fact, but with lively

imaginations, as I have said in one of my books, ["A Book of Operas,"

p. 9] have rhapsodized on its appositeness, and professed to hear in it

the whispered plottings of the lovers and the merry raillery of Rosina

contrasted with the futile ragings of her grouty guardian; but when

Rossini composed this piece of music its mission was to introduce an

adventure of the Emperor Aurelianus in Palmyra in the third century of

the Christian era. Having served that purpose it became the prelude to

another opera which dealt with Queen Elizabeth of England, a monarch

who reigned some twelve hundred years after Aurelianus. Again, before

the melody now known as that of Almaviva's cavatina had burst into the

efflorescence which now distinguishes it, it came as a chorus from the

mouths of Cyrus and his Persians in ancient Babylon.

When Mr. Lumley desired to produce Verdi's "Nabucodonosor" (called

"Nabucco" for short) in London in 1846 he deferred to English tradition

and brought out the opera as "Nino, Re d'Assyria." I confess that I

cannot conceive how changing a king of Babylon to a king of Assyria

could possibly have brought about a change one way or the other in the

effectiveness of Verdi's Italian music, but Mr. Lumley professed to

have found in the transformation reason for the English failure. At any

rate, he commented, in his "Reminiscences of the Opera," "That the

opera thus lost much of its original character, especially in the scene

where the captive Israelites became very uninteresting Babylonians, and

was thereby shorn of one element of success present on the Continent,

is undeniable."

There is another case even more to the purpose of this present

discussion. In 1818 Rossini produced his opera "Mose in Egitto" in

Naples. The strength of the work lay in its choruses; yet two of them

were borrowed from the composer's "Armida." In 1822 Bochsa performed it

as an oratorio at Covent Garden, but, says John Ebers in his "Seven

Years of the King's Theatre," published in 1828, "the audience

accustomed to the weighty metal and pearls of price of Handel's

compositions found the 'Moses' as dust in the balance in comparison."

"The oratorio having failed as completely as erst did Pharaoh's host,"

Ebers continues, "the ashes of 'Mose in Egitto' revived in the form of

an opera entitled 'Pietro l'Eremita.' Moses was transformed into Peter.

In this form the opera was as successful as it had been unfortunate as

an oratorio.... 'Mose in Egitto' was condemned as cold, dull, and

heavy. 'Pietro l'Eremita,' Lord Sefton, one of the most competent

judges of the day, pronounced to be the most effective opera produced

within his recollection; and the public confirmed the justice of the

remark, for no opera during my management had such unequivocal

success." [Footnote: "Seven Years of the King's Theatre," by John

Ebers, pp. 157, 158.] This was not the end of the opera's vicissitudes,

to some of which I shall recur presently; let this suffice now:

Rossini rewrote it in 1827, adding some new music for the Academie

Royal in Paris, and called it "Moise"; when it was revived for the

Covent Garden oratorios, London, in 1833, it was not only performed

with scenery and dresses, but recruited with music from Handel's

oratorio and renamed "The Israelites in Egypt; or the Passage of the

Red Sea"; when the French "Moise" reached the Royal Italian Opera,

Covent Garden, in April, 1850, it had still another name, "Zora,"

though Chorley does not mention the fact in his "Thirty Years' Musical

Recollections," probably because the failure of the opera which he

loved grieved him too deeply. For a long time "Moses" occupied a

prominent place among oratorios. The Handel and Haydn Society of Boston

adopted it in 1845, and between then and 1878 performed it forty-five

times.

In all the years of my intimate association with the lyric drama

(considerably more than the number of which Mr. Chorley has left us a

record) I have seen but one opera in which the plot adheres to the

Biblical story indicated by its title. That opera is Saint-Saens's

"Samson et Dalila." I have seen others whose titles and dramatis

personae suggested narratives found in Holy Writ, but in nearly all

these cases it would be a profanation of the Book to call them Biblical

operas. Those which come to mind are Goldmark's "Konigin von Saba,"

Massenet's "Herodiade" and Richard Strauss's "Salome." I have heard, in

whole or part, but not seen, three of the works which Rubinstein would

fain have us believe are operas, but which are not--"Das verlorene

Paradies," "Der Thurmbau zu Babel" and "Moses"; and I have a study

acquaintance with the books and scores of his "Maccabaer," which is an

opera; his "Sulamith," which tries to be one, and his "Christus," which

marks the culmination of the vainest effort that a contemporary

composer made to parallel Wagner's achievement on a different line.

There are other works which are sufficiently known to me through

library communion or concert-room contact to enable me to claim enough

acquaintanceship to justify converse about them and which must perforce

occupy attention in this study. Chiefest and noblest of these are

Rossini's "Moses" and Mehul's "Joseph." Finally, there are a few with

which I have only a passing or speaking acquaintance; whose faces I can

recognize, fragments of whose speech I know, and whose repute is such

that I can contrive to guess at their hearts--such as Verdi's

"Nabucodonosor" and Gounod's "Reine de Saba."

Rossini's "Moses" was the last of the Italian operas (the last by a

significant composer, at least) which used to be composed to ease the

Lenten conscience in pleasure-loving Italy. Though written to be played

with the adjuncts of scenery and costumes, it has less of action than

might easily be infused into a performance of Mendelssohn's "Elijah,"

and the epical element which finds its exposition in the choruses is

far greater than that in any opera of its time with which I am

acquainted. In both its aspects, as oratorio and as opera, it harks

back to a time when the two forms were essentially the same save in

respect of subject matter. It is a convenient working hypothesis to

take the classic tragedy of Hellas as the progenitor of the opera. It

can also be taken as the prototype of the Festival of the Ass, which

was celebrated as long ago as the twelfth century in France; of the

miracle plays which were performed in England at the same time; the

Commedia spiritiuale of thirteenth-century Italy and the Geistliche

Schauspiele of fourteenth-century Germany. These mummeries with their

admixture of church song, pointed the way as media of edification to

the dramatic representations of Biblical scenes which Saint Philip Neri

used to attract audiences to hear his sermons in the Church of St. Mary

in Vallicella, in Rome, and the sacred musical dramas came to be called

oratorios. While the camerata were seeking to revive the classic drama

in Florence, Carissimi was experimenting with sacred material in Rome,

and his epoch-making allegory, "La Rappresentazione dell' Anima e del

Corpo," was brought out, almost simultaneously with Peri's "Euridice,"

in 1600. Putting off the fetters of plainsong, music became beautiful

for its own sake, and as an agent of dramatic expression. His

excursions into Biblical story were followed for a century or more by

the authors of sacra azione, written to take the place of secular

operas in Lent. The stories of Jephtha and his daughter, Hezekiah,

Belshazzar, Abraham and Isaac, Jonah, Job, the Judgment of Solomon, and

the Last Judgment became the staple of opera composers in Italy and

Germany for more than a century. Alessandro Scarlatti, whose name looms

large in the history of opera, also composed oratorios; and Mr. E. J.

Dent, his biographer, has pointed out that "except that the operas are

in three acts and the oratorios in two, the only difference is in the

absence of professedly comic characters and of the formal statement in

which the author protests that the words fata, dio, dieta, etc., are

only scherzi poetici and imply nothing contrary to the Catholic faith."

Zeno and Metastasio wrote texts for sacred operas as well as profane,

with Tobias, Absalom, Joseph, David, Daniel, and Sisera as subjects.

Presently I shall attempt a discussion of the gigantic attempt made by

Rubinstein to enrich the stage with an art-form to which he gave a

distinctive name, but which was little else than, an inflated type of

the old sacra azione, employing the larger apparatus which modern

invention and enterprise have placed at the command of the playwright,

stage manager, and composer. I am compelled to see in his project

chiefly a jealous ambition to rival the great and triumphant

accomplishment of Richard Wagner, but it is possible that he had a

prescient eye on a coming time. The desire to combine pictures with

oratorio has survived the practice which prevailed down to the

beginning of the nineteenth century. Handel used scenes and costumes

when he produced his "Esther," as well as his "Acis and Galatea," in

London. Dittersdorf has left for us a description of the stage

decorations prepared for his oratorios when they were performed in the

palace of the Bishop of Groswardein. Of late years there have been a

number of theatrical representations of Mendelssohn's "Elijah." I have

witnessed as well as heard a performance of "Acis and Galatea" and been

entertained with the spectacle of Polyphemus crushing the head of

presumptuous Acis with a stave like another Fafner while singing "Fly,

thou massy ruin, fly" to the bludgeon which was playing understudy for

the fatal rock.

This diverting incident brings me to a consideration of one of the

difficulties which stand in the way of effective stage pictures

combined with action in the case of some of the most admired of the

subjects for oratorios or sacred opera. It was not the Lord Chamberlain

who stood in the way of Saint-Saens's "Samson et Dalila" in the United

States for many years, but the worldly wisdom of opera managers who

shrank from attempting to stage the spectacle of the falling Temple of

Dagon, and found in the work itself a plentiful lack of that dramatic

movement which is to-day considered more essential to success than

beautiful and inspiriting music. "Samson et Dalila" was well known in

its concert form when the management of the Metropolitan Opera House

first attempted to introduce it as an opera. It had a single

performance in the season of 1894-1895 and then sought seclusion from

the stage lamps for twenty years. It was, perhaps, fortunate for the

work that no attempt was made to repeat it, for, though well sung and

satisfactorily acted, the toppling of the pillars of the temple,

discreetly supported by too visible wires, at the conclusion made a

stronger appeal to the popular sense of the ridiculous than even

Saint-Saens's music could withstand. It is easy to inveigh against the

notion frivolous fribbles and trumpery trappings receive more attention

than the fine music which ought to be recognized as the soul of the

work, the vital spark which irradiates an inconsequential material

body; but human nature has not yet freed itself sufficiently from gross

clogs to attain so ideal an attitude.

It is to a danger similar to that which threatened the original New

York "Samson" that the world owes the most popular melody in Rossini's

"Mose." The story is old and familiar to the students of operatic

history, but will bear retelling. The plague of darkness opens the

opera, the passage of the Red Sea concludes it. Rossini's stage manager

had no difficulty with the former, which demanded nothing more than the

lowering of the stage lights. But he could evolve no device which could

save the final miracle from laughter. A hilarious ending to so solemn a

work disturbed the management and the librettist, Totola, who, just

before a projected revival in Naples, a year or two after the first

production, came to the composer with a project for saving the third

act. Rossini was in bed, as usual, and the poet showed him the text of

the prayer, "Dal tuo stellato," which he said he had written in an

hour. "I will get up and write the music," said Rossini; "you shall

have it in a quarter of an hour." And he kept his word, whether

literally or not in respect of time does not matter. When the opera was

again performed it contained the chorus with its melody which provided

Paganini with material for one of his sensational performances on the

G-string.

[figure: a musical score excerpt]

Carpani tells the story and describes the effect upon the audience

which heard it for the first time. Laughter was just beginning in the

pit when the public was surprised to note that Moses was about to sing.

The people stopped laughing and prepared to listen. They were awed by

the beauty of the minor strain which was echoed by Aaron and then by

the chorus of Israelites. The host marched across the mimic sea and

fell on its knees, and the music burst forth again, but now in the

major mode. And now the audience joined in the jubilation. The people

in the boxes, says Carpani, stood up; they leaned over the railings;

applauded; they shouted: "Bello! bello! O che bello!" Carpani adds: "I

am almost in tears when I think of this prayer." An impressionable

folk, those Italians of less than a century ago. "Among other things

that can be said in praise of our hero," remarked a physician to

Carpani, amidst the enthusiasm caused by the revamped opera, "do not

forget that he is an assassin. I can cite to you more than forty

attacks of nervous fever or violent convulsions on the part of young

women, fond to excess of music, which have no other origin than the

prayer of the Hebrews in the third act with its superb change of key!"

Thus music saved the scene in Naples. When the opera was rewritten for

London and made to tell a story about Peter the Hermit, the

corresponding scene had to be elided after the first performance. Ebers

tells the story: "A body of troops was supposed to pass over a bridge

which, breaking, was to precipitate them into the water. The troops

being made of basketwork and pulled over the bridge by ropes,

unfortunately became refractory on their passage, and very sensibly

refused, when the bridge was about to give way, to proceed any further;

consequently when the downfall of the arches took place the basket men

remained very quietly on that part of the bridge which was left

standing, and instead of being consigned to the waves had nearly been

set on fire. The audience, not giving the troops due credit for their

prudence, found no little fault with their compliance with the law of

self-preservation. In the following representations of the opera the

bridge and basket men which, en passant (or en restant rather), had

cost fifty pounds, were omitted." [Footnote: Op. cit., p. 160] When

"Moise" was prepared in Paris 45,000 francs were sunk in the Red Sea.

I shall recur in a moment to the famous preghiera but, having Ebers'

book before me, I see an anecdote so delightfully illustrative of the

proverbial spirit of the lyric theatre that I cannot resist the

temptation to repeat it. In the revised "Moses" made for Paris there

occurs a quartet beginning "Mi manca la voce" ("I lack voice") which

Chorley describes as "a delicious round." Camporese had to utter the

words first and no sooner had she done so than Ronzi di Begnis, in a

whisper, loud enough to be heard by her companion, made the comment "E

vero!" ("True!")--"a remark," says Mr. Ebers, "which produced a retort

courteous somewhat more than verging on the limit of decorum, though

not proceeding to the extremity asserted by rumor, which would have

been as inconsistent with propriety as with the habitual dignity and

self-possession of Camporese's demeanor."

Somebody, I cannot recall who, has said that the success of "Dal tuo

stellato" set the fashion of introducing prayers into operas. Whether

this be true or not, it is a fact that a prayer occurs in four of the

operas which Rossini composed for the Paris Grand Opera and that the

formula is become so common that it may be set down as an operatic

convention, a convention, moreover, which even the iconoclast Wagner

left undisturbed. One might think that the propriety of prayer in a

religious drama would have been enforced upon the mind of a classicist

like Goethe by his admiration for the antique, but it was the fact that

Rossini's opera showed the Israelites upon their knees in supplication

to God that set the great German poet against "Mose." In a conversation

recorded by Eckermann as taking place in 1828, we hear him uttering his

objection to the work: "I do not understand how you can separate and

enjoy separately the subject and the music. You pretend here that the

subject is worthless, but you are consoled for it by a feast of

excellent music. I wonder that your nature is thus organized that your

ear can listen to charming sounds while your sight, the most perfect of

your senses, is tormented by absurd objects. You will not deny that

your 'Moses' is in effect very absurd. The curtain is raised and people

are praying. This is all wrong. The Bible says that when you pray you

should go into your chamber and close the door. Therefore, there should

be no praying in the theatre. As for me, I should have arranged a

wholly different 'Moses.' At first I should have shown the children of

Israel bowed down by countless odious burdens and suffering from the

tyranny of the Egyptian rulers. Then you would have appreciated more

easily what Moses deserved from his race, which he had delivered from a

shameful oppression." "Then," says Mr. Philip Hale, who directed my

attention to this interesting passage, "Goethe went on to reconstruct

the whole opera. He introduced, for instance, a dance of the Egyptians

after the plague of darkness was dispelled."

May not one criticise Goethe? If he so greatly reverenced prayer,

according to its institution under the New Dispensation, why did he not

show regard also for the Old and respect the verities of history

sufficiently to reserve his ballet till after the passage of the Red

Sea, when Moses celebrated the miracle with a song and "Miriam, the

prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all

the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances"?

CHAPTER II

BIBLE STORIES IN OPERA AND ORATORIO

It was the fond belief of Dr. Chrysander, born of his deep devotion to

Handel, in whose works he lived and moved and had his being, that the

heroic histories of the Jews offered no fit material for dramatic

representation. In his view the Jews never created dramatic poetry,

partly because of the Mosaic prohibition against plastic delineation of

their Deity, partly because the tragic element, which was so potent an

influence in the development of the Greek drama, was wanting in their

heroes. The theory that the Song of Songs, that canticle of canticles

of love, was a pastoral play had no lodgment in his mind; the poem

seemed less dramatic to him than the Book of Job. The former sprang

from the idyllic life of the northern tribes and reflected that life;

the latter, much more profound in conception, proved by its form that

the road to a real stage-play was insurmountably barred to the Hebrew

poet. What poetic field was open to him then? Only the hymning of a

Deity, invisible, omnipresent and omnipotent, the swelling call to

combat for the glory of God against an inimical world, and the

celebration of an ideal consisting in a peaceful, happy existence in

the Land of Promise under God's protecting care. This God presented

Himself occasionally as a militant, all-powerful warrior, but only in

moments when the fortunes of His people were critically at issue. These

moments, however, were exceptional and few; as a rule, God manifested

Himself in prophecy, through words and music. The laws were promulgated

in song; so were the prophetic promises, denunciations, and calls to

repentance; and there grew up a magnificent liturgical service in the

temple.

Hebrew poetry, epic and lyrical, was thus antagonistic to the drama.

So, also, Dr. Chrysander contends, was the Hebrew himself. Not only had

he no predilection for plastic creation, his life was not dramatic in

the sense illustrated in Greek tragedy. He lived a care-free, sensuous

existence, and either fell under righteous condemnation for his

transgressions or walked in the way prescribed of the Lord and found

rest at last in Abraham's bosom. His life was simple; so were his

strivings, his longings, his hopes. Yet when it came to the defence or

celebration of his spiritual possessions his soul was filled with such

a spirit of heroic daring, such a glow of enthusiasm, as are not to be

paralleled among another of the peoples of antiquity. He thus became a

fit subject for only one of the arts--music; in this art for only one

of its spheres, the sublime, the most appropriate and efficient vehicle

of which is the oratorio.

One part of this argument seems to me irrelevant; the other not firmly

founded in fact. It does not follow that because the Greek conscience

evolved the conceptions of rebellious pride and punitive Fate while the

Hebrew conscience did not, therefore the Greeks were the predestined

creators of the art-form out of which grew the opera and the Hebrews of

the form which grew into the oratorio. Neither is it true that because

a people are not disposed toward dramatic creation themselves they can

not, or may not, be the cause of dramatic creativeness in others. Dr.

Chrysander's argument, made in a lecture at the Johanneum in Hamburg in

1896, preceded an analysis of Handel's Biblical oratorios in their

relation to Hebrew history, and his exposition of that history as he

unfolded it chronologically from the Exodus down to the Maccabaean

period was in itself sufficient to furnish many more fit operatic plots

than have yet been written. Nor are there lacking in these stories some

of the elements of Greek legend and mythology which were the

mainsprings of the tragedies of Athens. The parallels are striking:

Jephtha's daughter and Iphigenia; Samson and his slavery and the

servitude of Hercules and Perseus; the fate of Ajax and other heroes

made mad by pride, and the lycanthropy of Nebuchadnezzar, of whose

vanity Dr. Hanslick once reminded Wagner, warning him against the fate

of the Babylonian king who became like unto an ox, "ate grass and was

composed by Verdi"; think reverently of Alcestis and the Christian

doctrine of atonement!

The writers of the first Biblical operas sought their subjects as far

back in history, or legend, as the written page permitted. Theile

composed an "Adam and Eve" in 1678; but our first parents never became

popular on the serious stage. Perhaps the fearful soul of the

theatrical costumer was frightened and perplexed by the problem which

the subject put up to him. Haydn introduced them into his oratorio "The

Creation," but, as the custom goes now, the third part of the work, in

which they appear, is frequently, if not generally omitted in

performance. Adam, to judge by the record in Holy Writ, made an

uneventful end: "And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and

thirty years: and he died"; but this did not prevent Lesueur from

writing an opera on his death ten years after Haydn's oratorio had its

first performance. He called it "La Mort d'Adam et son Apotheose," and

it involved him in a disastrous quarrel with the directors of the

Conservatoire and the Academie. Pursuing the search chronologically,

the librettists next came upon Cain and Abel, who offered a more

fruitful subject for dramatic and musical invention. We know very

little about the sacred operas which shared the list with works based

on classical fables and Roman history in the seventeenth and eighteenth

centuries; inasmuch, however, as they were an outgrowth of the pious

plays of the Middle Ages and designed for edifying consumption in Lent,

it is likely that they adhered in their plots pretty close to the

Biblical accounts. I doubt if the sentimental element which was in

vogue when Rossini wrote "Mose in Egitto" played much of a role in such

an opera as Johann Philipp Fortsch's "Kain und Abel; oder der

verzweifelnde Brudermorder," which was performed in Hamburg in 1689, or

even in "Abel's Tod," which came along in 1771. The first fratricidal

murder seems to have had an early and an enduring fascination for

dramatic poets and composers. Metastasio's "La Morte d'Abele," set by

both Caldara and Leo in 1732, remained a stalking-horse for composers

down to Morlacchi in 1820. One of the latest of Biblical operas is the

"Kain" of Heinrich Bulthaupt and Eugen d'Albert. This opera and a later

lyric drama by the same composer, "Tote Augen" (under which title a

casual reader would never suspect that a Biblical subject was lurking),

call for a little attention because of their indication of a possible

drift which future dramatists may follow in treating sacred story.

Wicked envy and jealousy were not sufficient motives in the eyes of

Bulthaupt and d'Albert for the first fratricide; there must be an

infusion of psychology and modern philosophy. Abel is an optimist, an

idealist, a contented dreamer, joying in the loveliness of life and

nature; Cain, a pessimist, a morose brooder, for whom life contained no

beautiful illusions. He gets up from his couch in the night to question

the right of God to create man for suffering. He is answered by

Lucifer, who proclaims himself the benefactor of the family in having

rescued them from the slothful existence of Eden and given them a

Redeemer. The devil discourses on the delightful ministrations of that

Redeemer, whose name is Death. In the morning Abel arises and as he

offers his sacrifice he hymns the sacred mystery of life and turns a

deaf ear to the new-found gospel of his brother. An inspiring thought

comes to Cain; by killing Abel and destroying himself he will save

future generations from the sufferings to which they are doomed. With

this benevolent purpose in mind he commits the murder. The blow has

scarcely been struck before a multitude of spirit-voices call his name

and God thunders the question: "Where is Abel, thy brother?" Adam comes

from his cave and looks upon the scene with horror. Now Cain realizes

that his work is less than half done: he is himself still alive and so

is his son Enoch. He rushes forward to kill his child, but the mother

throws herself between, and Cain discovers that he is not strong-willed

enough to carry out his design. God's curse condemns him to eternal

unrest, and while the elements rage around him Cain goes forth into the

mountain wilderness.

Herr Bulthaupt did not permit chronology to stand in the way of his

action, but it can at least be said for him that he did not profane the

Book as Herr Ewers, Mr. d'Albert's latest collaborator, did when he

turned a story of Christ's miraculous healing of a blind woman into a

sensational melodrama. In the precious opera, "Tote Augen" ("Dead

Eyes"), brought out in March, 1916, in Dresden, Myrocle, the blind

woman, is the wife of Arcesius, a Roman ambassador in Jerusalem. Never

having seen him, Myrocle believes her husband to be a paragon of

beauty, but he is, in fact, hideous of features, crook-backed, and

lame; deformed in mind and heart, too, for he has concealed the truth

from her. Christ is entering Jerusalem, and Mary of Magdala leads

Myrocle to him, having heard of the miracles which he performs, and he

opens the woman's eyes at the moment that the multitude is shouting its

hosannahs. The first man who fills the vision of Myrocle is Galba,

handsome, noble, chivalrous, who had renounced the love he bore her

because she was the wife of his friend. In Galba the woman believes she

sees the husband whom in her fond imagination she had fitted out with

the charms of mind and person which his friend possesses. She throws

herself into his arms, and he does not repel her mistaken embraces; but

the misshapen villain throws himself upon the pair and strangles his

friend to death. A slave enlightens the mystified woman; the murderer,

not the dead hero at his feet, is her husband. Singularly enough, she

does not turn from him with hatred and loathing, but looks upon him

with a great pity. Then she turns her eyes upon the sun, which Christ

had said should not set until she had cursed him, and gazes into its

searing glow until her sight is again dead. Moral: it is sinful to love

the loveliness of outward things; from the soul must come salvation. As

if she had never learned the truth, she returns to her wifely love for

Arcesius. The story is as false to nature as it is sacrilegious; its

trumpery theatricalism is as great a hindrance to a possible return of

Biblical opera as the disgusting celebration of necrophilism in Richard

Strauss's "Salome."

In our historical excursion we are still among the patriarchs, and the

whole earth is of one language and of one speech. Noah, the ark, and

the deluge seem now too prodigious to be essayed by opera makers, but,

apparently, they did not awe the Englishman Edward Eccleston (or

Eggleston), who is said to have produced an opera, "Noah's Flood, or

the Destruction of the World," in London in 1679, nor Seyfried, whose

"Libera me" was sung at Beethoven's funeral, and who, besides Biblical

operas entitled "Saul," "Abraham," "The Maccabees," and "The Israelites

in the Desert," brought out a "Noah" in Vienna in 1818. Halevy left an

unfinished opera, "Noe," which Bizet, who was his son-in-law,

completed. Of oratorios dealing with the deluge I do not wish to speak

further than to express my admiration for the manner in which

Saint-Saens opened the musical floodgates in "Le Deluge."

On the plain in the Land of Shinar the families of the sons of Noah

builded them a city and a tower whose top they arrogantly hoped might

reach unto heaven. But the tower fell, the tongues of the people were

confounded, and the people were scattered abroad on the face of the

earth. Rubinstein attempted to give dramatic representation to the

tremendous incident, and to his effort and vain dream I shall revert in

the next chapter of this book. Now I must on with the history of the

patriarchs. The story of Abraham and his attempted offering of Isaac

has been much used as oratorio material, and Joseph Elsner, Chopin's

teacher, brought out a Polish opera, "Ofiara Abrama," at Warsaw in 1827.

A significant milestone in the history of the Hebrews as well as

Biblical operas has now been reached. The sojourn of the Jews in Egypt

and their final departure under the guidance of Moses have already

occupied considerable attention in this study. They provided material

for the two operas which seem to me the noblest of their kind--Mehul's

"Joseph" and Rossini's "Mose in Egitto." Mehul's opera, more than a

decade older than Rossini's, still holds a place on the stages of

France and Germany, and this despite the fact that it foregoes two

factors which are popularly supposed to be essential to operatic

success--a love episode and woman's presence and participation in the

action. The opera, which is in three acts, was brought forward at the

Theatre Feydeau in Paris on February 17, 1807. It owed its origin to a

Biblical tragedy entitled "Omasis," by Baour Lormian. The subject--the

sale of Joseph by his brothers into Egyptian slavery, his rise to

power, his forgiveness of the wrong attempted against him, and his

provision of a home for the people of Israel in the land of Goshen--had

long been popular with composers of oratorios. The list of these works

begins with Caldara's "Giuseppe" in 1722. Metastasio's "Giuseppe

riconosciuto" was set by half a dozen composers between 1733 and 1788.

Handel wrote his English oratorio in 1743; G. A. Macfarren's was

performed at the Leeds festival of 1877. Lormian thought it necessary

to introduce a love episode into his tragedy, but Alexander Duval, who

wrote the book for Mehul's opera, was of the opinion that the diversion

only enfeebled the beautiful if austere picture of patriarchal domestic

life delineated in the Bible. He therefore adhered to tradition and

created a series of scenes full of beauty, dignity, and pathos, simple

and strong in spite of the bombast prevalent in the literary style of

the period. Mehul's music is marked by grandeur, simplicity, lofty

sentiment, and consistent severity of manner. The composer's

predilection for ecclesiastical music, created, no doubt, by the blind

organist who taught him in his childhood and nourished by his studies

and labors at the monastery under the gifted Hauser, found opportunity

for expression in the religious sentiments of the drama, and his

knowledge of plain chant is exhibited in the score "the simplicity,

grandeur, and dramatic truth of which will always command the

admiration of impartial musicians," remarks Gustave Choquet. The

enthusiasm of M. Tiersot goes further still, for he says that the music

of "Joseph" is more conspicuous for the qualities of dignity and

sonority than that of Handel's oratorio. The German Hanslick, to whom

the absence from the action of the "salt of the earth, women" seemed

disastrous, nevertheless does not hesitate to institute a comparison

between "Joseph" and one of Mozart's latest operas. "In its mild,

passionless benevolence the entire role of Joseph in Mehul's opera," he

says, "reminds one strikingly of Mozart's 'Titus,' and not to the

advantage of the latter. The opera 'Titus' is the work of an

incomparably greater genius, but it belongs to a partly untruthful,

wholly modish, tendency (that of the old opera seria), while the genre

of 'Joseph' is thoroughly noble, true, and eminently dramatic. 'Joseph'

has outlived 'Titus.'" [Footnote: "Die Moderne Opera," p. 92.] Carl

Maria von Weber admired Mehul's opera greatly, and within recent years

Felix Weingartner has edited a German edition for which he composed

recitatives to take the place of the spoken dialogue of the original

book.

There is no story of passion in "Joseph." The love portrayed there is

domestic and filial; its objects are the hero's father, brothers, and

country--"Champs eternels, Hebron, douce vallee." It was not until our

own day that an author with a perverted sense which had already found

gratification in the stench of mental, moral, and physical decay

exhaled by "Salome" and "Elektra" nosed the piquant, pungent odor of

the episode of Potiphar's wife and blew it into the theatre. Joseph's

temptress did not tempt even the prurient taste which gave us the

Parisian operatic versions of the stories of Phryne, Thais, and

Messalina. Richard Strauss's "Josephslegende" stands alone in musical

literature. There is, indeed, only one reference in the records of

oratorio or opera to the woman whose grovelling carnality is made the

foil of Joseph's virtue in the story as told in the Book. That

reference is found in a singular trilogy, which was obviously written

more to disclose the possibilities of counterpoint than to set forth

the story--even if it does that, which I cannot say; the suggestion

comes only from a title. In August, 1852, Pietro Raimondi produced an

oratorio in three parts entitled, respectively, "Putifar," "Giuseppe

giusto," and "Giacobbe," at the Teatro Argentina, in Rome. The music of

the three works was so written that after each had been performed

separately, with individual principal singers, choristers, and

orchestras, they were united in a simultaneous performance. The success

of the stupendous experiment in contrapuntal writing was so great that

the composer fell in a faint amidst the applause of the audience and

died less than three months afterward.

In the course of this study I have mentioned nearly all of the Biblical

characters who have been turned into operatic heroes. Nebuchadnezzar

appeared on the stage at Hamburg in an opera of Keiser's in 1704;

Ariosti put him through his bovine strides in Vienna in 1706. He was

put into a ballet by a Portuguese composer and made the butt of a

French opera bouffe writer, J. J. Debillement, in 1871. He recurs to my

mind now in connection with a witty fling at "Nabucco" made by a French

rhymester when Verdi's opera was produced at Paris in 1845. The noisy

brass in the orchestration offended the ears of a critic, and he wrote:

Vraiment l'affiche est dans son tort;

En faux, ou devrait la poursuivre.

Pourquoi nous annoncer Nabuchodonos--or

Quand c'est Nabuchodonos--cuivre?

Judas Maccabaeus is one of the few heroes of ancient Israel who have

survived in opera, Rubinstein's "Makkabaer" still having a hold, though

not a strong one, on the German stage. The libretto is an adaptation by

Mosenthal (author also of Goldmark's "Queen of Sheba") of a drama by

Otto Ludwig. In the drama as well as some of its predecessors some

liberties have been taken with the story as told in Maccabees II,

chapter 7. The tale of the Israelitish champion of freedom and his

brothers Jonathan and Simon, who lost their lives in the struggle

against the tyranny of the kings of Syria, is intensely dramatic. For

stage purposes the dramatists have associated the massacre of a mother

and her seven sons and the martyrdom of the aged Eleazar, who caused

the uprising of the Jews, with the family history of Judas himself. J.

W. Franck produced "Die Maccabaische Mutter" in Hamburg in 1679,

Ariosti composed "La Madre dei Maccabei" in 1704, Ignaz von Seyfried

brought out "Die Makkabaer, oder Salmonaa" in 1818, and Rubinstein his

opera in Berlin on April 17,1875.

The romantic career of Jephtha, a natural son, banished from home,

chief of a band of roving marauders, mighty captain and ninth judge of

Israel, might have fitted out many an opera text, irrespective of the

pathetic story of the sacrifice of his daughter in obedience to a vow,

though this episode springs first to mind when his name is mentioned,

and has been the special subject of the Jephtha operas. An Italian

composer named Pollarolo wrote a "Jefte" for Vienna in 1692; other

operas dealing with the history are Rolle's "Mehala, die Tochter

Jephthas" (1784), Meyerbeer's "Jephtha's Tochter" (Munich, 1813),

Generali, "Il voto di Jefte" (1827), Sanpieri, "La Figlia di Jefte"

(1872). Luis Cepeda produced a Spanish opera in Madrid in 1845, and a

French opera, in five acts and a prologue, by Monteclaire, was

prohibited, after one performance, by Cardinal de Noailles in 1832.

Judith, the widow of Manasseh, who delivered her native city of

Bethulia from the Assyrian Holofernes, lulling him to sleep with her

charms and then striking off his drunken head with a falchion, though

an Apocryphal personage, is the most popular of Israelitish heroines.

The record shows the operas "Judith und Holofernes" by Leopold

Kotzeluch (1799), "Giuditta" by S. Levi (1844), Achille Peri (1860),

Righi (1871), and Sarri (1875). Naumann wrote a "Judith" in 1858,

Doppler another in 1870, and Alexander Seroff a Russian opera under the

same title in 1863. Martin Roder, who used to live in Boston, composed

a "Judith," but it was never performed, while George W. Chadwick's

"Judith," half cantata, half opera, which might easily be fitted for

the stage, has had to rest content with a concert performance at a

Worcester (Mass.) festival.

The memory of Esther, the queen of Ahasuerus, who saved her people from

massacre, is preserved and her deed celebrated by the Jews in their

gracious festival of Purim. A gorgeous figure for the stage, she has

been relegated to the oratorio platform since the end of the eighteenth

century. Racine's tragedy "Athalie" has called out music from Abbe

Vogler, Gossec, Boieldieu, Mendelssohn, and others, and a few

oratorios, one by Handel, have been based on the story of the woman

through whom idolatry was introduced into Judah; but I have no record

of any Athalia opera.

CHAPTER III

RUBINSTEIN'S "GEISTLICHE OPER"

I have a strong belief in the essential excellence of Biblical subjects

for the purposes of the lyric drama--at least from an historical point

of view. I can see no reason against but many reasons in favor of a

return to the stage of the patriarchal and heroic figures of the people

who are a more potent power in the world to-day, despite their

dispersal and loss of national unity, than they were in the days of

their political grandeur and glory. Throughout the greater part of his

creative career Anton Rubinstein was the champion of a similar idea. Of

the twenty works which he wrote for the theatre, including ballets, six

were on Biblical subjects, and to promote a propaganda which began with

the composition of "Der Thurmbau zu Babel," in 1870, he not only

entered the literary field, but made personal appeal for practical

assistance in both the Old World and the New. His, however, was a

religious point of view, not the historical or political. It is very

likely that a racial predilection had much to do with his attitude on

the subject, but in his effort to bring religion into the service of

the lyric stage he was no more Jew than Christian: the stories to which

he applied his greatest energies were those of Moses and Christ.

Much against my inclination (for Rubinstein came into my intellectual

life under circumstances and conditions which made him the strongest

personal influence in music that I have ever felt), I have been

compelled to believe that there were other reasons besides those which

he gave for his championship of Biblical opera. Smaller men than he,

since Wagner's death, have written trilogies and dreamed of theatres

and festivals devoted to performances of their works. Little wonder if

Rubinstein believed that he had created, or could create, a kind of

art-work which should take place by the side of "Der Ring des

Nibelungen," and have its special home like Bayreuth; and it may have

been a belief that his project would excite the sympathetic zeal of the

devout Jew and pious Christian alike, as much as his lack of the

capacity for self-criticism, which led him like a will-o'-the-wisp

along the path which led into the bogs of failure and disappointment.

While I was engaged in writing the programme book for the music

festival given in New York in 1881, at which "The Tower of Babel" was

performed in a truly magnificent manner, Dr. Leopold Damrosch, the

conductor of the festival, told me that Rubinstein had told him that

the impulse to use Biblical subjects in lyrical dramas had come to him

while witnessing a ballet based on a Bible story many years before in

Paris. He said that he had seldom been moved so profoundly by any

spectacle as by this ballet, and it suggested to him the propriety of

treating sacred subjects in a manner worthy of them, yet different from

the conventional oratorio. The explanation has not gotten into the

books, but is not inconsistent with the genesis of his Biblical operas,

as related by Rubinstein in his essay on the subject printed by Joseph

Lewinsky in his book "Vor den Coulissen," published in 1882 after at

least three of the operas had been written. The composer's defence of

his works and his story of the effort which he made to bring about a

realization of his ideals deserve to be rehearsed in justice to his

character as man and artist, as well as in the interest of the works

themselves and the subjects, which, I believe, will in the near future

occupy the minds of composers again.

"The oratorio," said Rubinstein, "is an art-form which I have always

been disposed to protest against. The best-known masterpieces of this

form have, not during the study of them but when hearing them

performed, always left me cold; indeed, often positively pained me. The

stiffness of the musical and still more of the poetical form always

seemed to me absolutely incongruous with the high dramatic feeling of

the subject. To see and hear gentlemen in dress coats, white cravats,

yellow gloves, holding music books before them, or ladies in modern,

often extravagant, toilets singing the parts of the grand, imposing

figures of the Old and New Testaments has always disturbed me to such a

degree that I could never attain to pure enjoyment. Involuntarily I

felt and thought how much grander, more impressive, vivid, and true

would be all that I had experienced in the concert-room if represented

on the stage with costumes, decorations, and full action."

The contention, said Rubinstein in effect, that Biblical subjects are

ill adapted to the stage beeause of their sacred character is a

testimony of poverty for the theatre, which should be an agency in the

service of the highest purposes of culture. The people have always

wanted to see stage representations of Bible incidents; witness the

mystery plays of the Middle Ages and the Passion Play at Oberammergau

to-day. But yielding to a prevalent feeling that such representations

are a profanation of sacred history, he had conceived an appropriate

type of art-work which was to be produced in theatres to be specially

built for the purpose and by companies of artists to be specially

trained to that end. This art-work was to be called Sacred Opera

(geistliche Oper), to distinguish it from secular opera, but its

purpose was to be purely artistic and wholly separate from the

interests of the Church. He developed ways and means for raising the

necessary funds, enlisting artists, overcoming the difficulties

presented by the mise en scene and the polyphonic character of the

choral music, and set forth his aim in respect of the subject-matter of

the dramas to be a representation in chronological order of the chief

incidents described in the Old and New Testaments. He would be willing

to include in his scheme Biblical operas already existing, if they were

not all, with the exception of Mehul's "Joseph," made unfit by their

treatment of sacred matters, especially by their inclusion of love

episodes which brought them into the domain of secular opera.

For years, while on his concert tours in various countries, Rubinstein

labored to put his plan into operation. Wherever he found a public

accustomed to oratorio performances he inquired into the possibility of

establishing his sacred theatre there. He laid the project before the

Grand Duke of Weimar, who told him that it was feasible only in large

cities. The advice sent him to Berlin, where he opened his mind to the

Minister of Education, von Muhler. The official had his doubts; sacred

operas might do for Old Testament stories, but not for New; moreover,

such a theatre should be a private, not a governmental, undertaking. He

sought the opinion of Stanley, Dean of Westminster Abbey, who said that

he could only conceive a realization of the idea in the oldtime popular

manner, upon a rude stage at a country fair.

For a space it looked as if the leaders of the Jewish congregations in

Paris would provide funds for the enterprise so far as it concerned

itself with subjects taken from the Old Dispensation; but at the last

they backed out, fearing to take the initiative in a matter likely to

cause popular clamor. "I even thought of America," says Rubinstein, "of

the daring transatlantic impresarios, with their lust of enterprise,

who might be inclined to speculate on a gigantic scale with my idea. I

had indeed almost succeeded, but the lack of artists brought it to pass

that the plans, already in a considerable degree of forwardness, had to

be abandoned. I considered the possibility of forming an association of

composers and performing artists to work together to carry on the

enterprise materially, intellectually, and administratively; but the

great difficulty of enlisting any considerable number of artists for

the furtherance of a new idea in art frightened me back from this

purpose also." In these schemes there are evidences of Rubinstein's

willingness to follow examples set by Handel as well as Wagner. The

former composed "Judas Maccabaeus" and "Alexander Balus" to please the

Jews who had come to his help when he made financial shipwreck with his

opera; the latter created the Richard Wagner Verein to put the Bayreuth

enterprise on its feet.

Of the six sacred operas composed by Rubinstein three may be said to be

practicable for stage representation. They are "Die Makkabaer,"

"Sulamith" (based on Solomon's Song of Songs) and "Christus." The first

has had many performances in Germany; the second had a few performances

in Hamburg in 1883; the last, first performed as an oratorio in Berlin

in 1885, was staged in Bremen in 1895. It has had, I believe, about

fourteen representations in all. As for the other three works, "Der

Thurmbau zu Babel" (first performance in Konigsberg in 1870), "Das

verlorene Paradies" (Dusseldorf, 1875), and "Moses" (still awaiting

theatrical representation, I believe), it may be said of them that they

are hybrid creations which combine the oratorio and opera styles by

utilizing the powers of the oldtime oratorio chorus and the modern

orchestra, with the descriptive capacity of both raised to the highest

power, to illustrate an action which is beyond the capabilities of the

ordinary stage machinery. In the character of the forms employed in the

works there is no startling innovation; we meet the same alternation of

chorus, recitative, aria, and ensemble that we have known since the

oratorio style was perfected. A change, howeer, has come over the

spirit of the expression and the forms have all relaxed some of their

rigidity. In the oratorios of Handel and Haydn there are instances not

a few of musical delineation in the instrumental as well as the vocal

parts; but nothing in them can be thought of, so far at least as the

ambition of the design extends, as a companion piece to the scene in

the opera which pictures the destruction of the tower of Babel. This is

as far beyond the horizon of the fancy of the old masters as it is

beyond the instrumental forces which they controlled.

"Paradise Lost," the text paraphrased from portions of Milton's epic,

is an oratorio pure and simple. It deals with the creation of the world

according to the Mosaic (or as Huxley would have said, Miltonic) theory

and the medium of expression is an alternation of recitatives and

choruses, the latter having some dramatic life and a characteristic

accompaniment. It is wholly contemplative; there is nothing like action

in it. "The Tower of Babel" has action in the restricted sense in which

it enters into Mendelssohn's oratorios, and scenic effects which would

tax the utmost powers of the modern stage-machinist who might attempt

to carry them out. A mimic tower of Babel is more preposterous than a

mimic temple of Dagon; yet, unless Rubinstein's stage directions are to

be taken in a Pickwickian sense, we ought to listen to this music while

looking at a stage-setting more colossal than any ever contemplated by

dramatist before. We should see a wide stretch of the plain of Shinar;

in the foreground a tower so tall as to give color of plausibility to a

speech which prates of an early piercing of heaven and so large as to

provide room for a sleeping multitude on its scaffoldings. Brick kilns,

derricks, and all the apparatus and machinery of building should be on

all hands, and from the summit of a mound should grow a giant tree,

against whose trunk should hang a brazen shield to be used as a signal

gong. We should see in the progress of the opera the bustling activity

of the workmen, the roaring flames and rolling smoke of the brick

kilns, and witness the miraculous spectacle of a man thrown into the

fire and walking thence unharmed. We should see (in dissolving views)

the dispersion of the races and behold the unfolding of a rainbow in

the sky. And, finally, we should get a glimpse of an open heaven and

the Almighty on His throne, and a yawning hell, with Satan and his

angels exercising their dread dominion. Can such scenes be mimicked

successfully enough to preserve a serious frame of mind in the

observer? Hardly. Yet the music seems obviously to have been written in

the expectation that sight shall aid hearing to quicken the fancy and

emotion and excite the faculties to an appreciation of the work.

"The Tower of Babel" has been performed upon the stage; how I cannot

even guess. Knowing, probably, that the work would be given in concert

form oftener than in dramatic, Rubinstein tries to stimulate the fancy

of those who must be only listeners by profuse stage directions which

are printed in the score as well as the book of words. "Moses" is in

the same case. By the time that Rubinstein had completed it he

evidently realized that its hybrid character as well as its stupendous

scope would stand in the way of performances of any kind. Before even a

portion of its music had been heard in public, he wrote in a letter to

a friend: "It is too theatrical for the concert-room and too much like

an oratorio for the theatre. It is, in fact, the perfect type of the

sacred opera that I have dreamed of for years. What will come of it I

do not know; I do not think it can be performed entire. As it contains

eight distinct parts, one or two may from time to time be given either

in a concert or on the stage."

America was the first country to act on the suggestion of a fragmentary

performance. The first scene was brought forward in New York by Walter

Damrosch at a public rehearsal and concert of the Symphony Society (the

Oratorio Society assisting) on January 18 and 19, 1889. The third scene

was performed by the German Liederkranz, under Reinhold L. Herman, on

January 27 of the same year. The third and fourth scenes were in the

scheme of the Cincinnati Music Festival, Theodore Thomas, conductor, on

May 25,1894.

Each of the eight scenes into which the work is divided deals with an

episode in the life of Israel's lawgiver. In the first scene we have

the incident of the finding of the child in the bulrushes; in the

second occurs the oppression of the Israelites by the Egyptian

taskmasters, the slaying of one of the overseers by Moses, who, till

then regarded as the king's son, now proclaims himself one of the

oppressed race. The third scene discloses Moses protecting Zipporah,

daughter of Jethro, a Midianitish priest, from a band of marauding

Edomites, his acceptance of Jethro's hospitality and the scene of the

burning bush and the proclamation of his mission. Scene IV deals with

the plagues, those of blood, hail, locusts, frogs, and vermin being

delineated in the instrumental introduction to the part, the action

beginning while the land is shrouded in the "thick darkness that might

be felt." The Egyptians call upon Osiris to dispel the darkness, but

are forced at last to appeal to Moses. He demands the liberation of his

people as the price to be paid for the removal of the plague; receiving

a promise from Pharaoh, he utters a prayer ending with "Let there be

light." The result is celebrated in a brilliant choral acclamation of

the returning sun. The scene has a parallel in Rossini's opera. Pharaoh

now equivocates; he will free the sons of Jacob, but not the women,

children, or chattels. Moses threatens punishment in the death of all

of Egypt's first-born, and immediately solo and chorus voices bewail

the new affliction. When the king hears that his son is dead he gives

his consent, and the Israelites depart with an ejaculation of thanks to

Jehovah. The passage of the Red Sea, Miriam's celebration of that

miracle, the backsliding of the Israelites and their worship of the

golden calf, the reception of the Tables of the Law, the battle between

the Israelites and Modbites on the threshold of the Promised Land, and

the evanishment and apotheosis of Moses are the contents of the

remainder of the work.

It is scarcely to be wondered at that the subjects which opera

composers have found adaptable to their uses in the New Testament are

very few compared with those offered by the Old. The books written by

the evangelists around the most stupendous tragical story of all time

set forth little or nothing (outside of the birth, childhood,

teachings, miracles, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth)

which could by any literary ingenuity be turned into a stage play

except the parables with which Christ enforced and illustrated His

sermons. The sublime language and imagery of the Apocalypse have

furnished forth the textual body of many oratorios, but it still

transcends the capacity of mortal dramatist.

In the parable of the Prodigal Son there is no personage whose

presentation in dramatic garb could be looked upon as a profanation of

the Scriptures. It is this fact, probably, coupled with its profoundly

beautiful reflection of human nature, which has made it a popular

subject with opera writers. There was an Italian "Figliuolo Prodigo" as

early as 1704, composed by one Biffi; a French melodrama, "L'Enfant

Prodigue," by Morange about 1810; a German piece of similar character

by Joseph Drechsler in Vienna in 1820. Pierre Gaveaux, who composed

"Leonore, ou l'Amour Conjugal," which provided Beethoven with his

"Fidelio," brought out a comic opera on the subject of the Prodigal Son

in 1811, and Berton, who had also dipped into Old Testament story in an

oratorio, entitled "Absalon," illustrated the parable in a ballet. The

most recent settings of the theme are also the most significant:

Auber's five-act opera "L'Enfant Prodigue," brought out in Paris in

1850, and Ponchielli's "Il Figliuolo Prodigo," in four acts, which had

its first representation at La Scala in 1880.

The mediaeval mysteries were frequently interspersed with choral songs,

for which the liturgy of the Church provided material. If we choose to

look upon them as incipient operas or precursors of that art-form we

must yet observe that their monkish authors, willing enough to trick

out the story of the Nativity with legendary matter drawn from the

Apocryphal New Testament, which discloses anything but a reverential

attitude toward the sublime tragedy, nevertheless stood in such awe

before the spectacle of Calvary that they deemed it wise to leave its

dramatic treatment to the church service in the Passion Tide. In that

service there was something approaching to characterization in the

manner of the reading by the three deacons appointed to deliver,

respectively, the narrative, the words of Christ, and the utterances of

the Apostles and people; and it may be--that this and the liturgical

solemnities of Holy Week were reverently thought sufficient by them and

the authors of the first sacred operas. Nevertheless, we have Reiser's

"Der Blutige und Sterbende Jesus," performed at Hamburg, and

Metastasio's "La Passione di Gesu Christi," composed first by Caldara,

which probably was an oratorio.

Earlier than these was Theile's "Die Geburt Christi," performed in

Hamburg in 1681. The birth of Christ and His childhood (there was an

operatic representation of His presentation in the Temple) were

subjects which appealed more to the writers of the rude plays which

catered to the popular love for dramatic mummery than did His

crucifixion. I am speaking now more specifically of lyric dramas, but

it is worthy of note that in the Coventry mysteries, as Hone points out

in the preface to his book, "Ancient Mysteries Described," [Footnote:

"Ancient Mysteries Described, especially the English Miracle Plays

Founded on Apocryphal New Testament Story," London, 1823.] there are

eight plays, or pageants, which deal with the Nativity as related in

the canon and the pseudo-gospels. In them much stress was laid upon the

suspicions of the Virgin Mother's chastity, for here was material that

was good for rude diversion as well as instruction in righteousness.

That Rubinstein dared to compose a Christ drama must be looked upon as

proof of the profound sincerity of his belief in the art-form which he

fondly hoped he had created; also, perhaps, as evidence of his artistic

ingenuousness. Only a brave or naive mind could have calmly

contemplated a labor from which great dramatists, men as great as

Hebbel, shrank back in alarm. After the completion of "Lohengrin"

Wagner applied himself to the creation of a tragedy which he called

"Jesus of Nazareth." We know his plan in detail, but he abandoned it

after he had offered his sketches to a French poet as the basis of a

lyric drama which he hoped to write for Paris. He confesses that he was

curious to know what the Frenchman would do with a work the stage

production of which would "provoke a thousand frights." He himself was

unwilling to stir up such a tempest in Germany; instead, he put his

sketches aside and used some of their material in his "Parsifal."

Wagner ignored the religious, or, let us say, the ecclesiastical, point

of view entirely in "Jesus of Nazareth." His hero was to have been, as

I have described him elsewhere, [Footnote: "A Book of Operas," p. 288.]

"a human philosopher who preached the saving grace of Love and sought

to redeem his time and people from the domination of conventional

law--the offspring of selfishness. His philosophy was socialism imbued

by love." Rubinstein proceeded along the lines of history, or orthodox

belief, as unreservedly in his "Christus" as he had done in his

"Moses." The work may be said to have brought his creative activities

to a close, although two compositions (a set of six pianoforte pieces

and an orchestral suite) appear in his list of numbered works after the

sacred opera. He died on November 20, 1894, without having seen a stage

representation of it. Nor did he live to see a public theatrical

performance of his "Moses," though he was privileged to witness a

private performance arranged at the German National Theatre in Prague

so that he might form an opinion of its effectiveness. The public has

never been permitted to learn anything about the impression which the

work made.

On May 25, 1895, a series of representations of "Christus" was begun in

Bremen, largely through the instrumentality of Professor Bulthaupt, a

potent and pervasive personage in the old Hanseatic town. He was not

only a poet and the author of the book of this opera and of some of

Bruch's works, but also a painter, and his mural decorations in the

Bremen Chamber of Commerce are proudly displayed by the citizens of the

town. It was under the supervision of the painter-poet that the Bremen

representations were given and, unless I am mistaken, he painted the

scenery or much of it. One of the provisions of the performances was

that applause was prohibited out of reverence for the sacred character

of the scenes, which were as frankly set forth as at Oberammergau. The

contents of the tragedy in some scenes and an epilogue briefly outlined

are these: The first scene shows the temptation of Christ in the

wilderness, where the devil "shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the

world in a moment of time." This disclosure is made by a series of

scenes, each opening for a short time in the background--castles,

palaces, gardens, mountains of gold, and massive heaps of earth's

treasures. In the second scene John the Baptist is seen and heard

preaching on the banks of the Jordan, in whose waters he baptizes

Jesus. This scene at the Bremen representations was painted from

sketches made by Herr Handrich in Palestine, as was also that of the

"Sermon on the Mount" and "The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes," which

form the subject of the next part. The fourth tableau shows the

expulsion of the money changers from the Temple; the fifth the Last

Supper, with the garden of Gethsemane as a background; the sixth the

trial and the last the crucifixion. Here, as if harking back to his

"Tower of Babel," Rubinstein brings in pictures of heaven and hell,

with angels and devils contemplating the catastrophe. The proclamation

of the Gospel to the Gentiles by St. Paul is the subject of the

epilogue.

CHAPTER IV

"SAMSON ET DALILA"

There are but two musical works based on the story of Samson on the

current list to-day, Handel's oratorio and Saint-Saens's opera; but

lyric drama was still in its infancy when the subject first took hold

of the fancy of composers and it has held it ever since. The earliest

works were of the kind called sacred operas in the books and are spoken

of as oratorios now, though they were doubtless performed with scenery

and costumes and with action of a sort. Such were "Il Sansone" by

Giovanni Paola Colonna (Bologna, 1677), "Sansone accecato da Filistri"

by Francesco Antonio Uri (Venice, about 1700), "Simson" by Christoph

Graupner (Hamburg, 1709), "Simson" by Georg von Pasterwitz (about

1770), "Samson" by J. N. Lefroid Mereaux (Paris, 1774), "Simson" by

Johann Heinrich Rolle (about 1790), "Simson" by Franz Tuczek (Vienna,

1804), and "Il Sansone" by Francesco Basili (Naples, 1824). Two French

operas are associated with great names and have interesting histories.

Voltaire wrote a dramatic text on the subject at the request of La

Popeliniere, the farmer-general, who, as poet, musician, and artist,

exercised a tremendous influence in his day. Rameau was in his service

as household clavecinist and set Voltaire's poem. The authors looked

forward to a production on the stage of the Grand Opera, where at least

two Biblical operas, an Old Testament "Jephte" and a New Testament

"Enfant prodigue" were current; but Rameau had powerful enemies, and

the opera was prohibited on the eve of the day on which it was to have

been performed. The composer had to stomach his mortification as best

he could; he put some of his Hebrew music into the service of his

Persian "Zoroastre". The other French Samson to whom I have re ferred

had also to undergo a sea-change like unto Rameau's, Rossini's Moses,

and Verdi's Nebuchadnezzar. Duprez, who was ambitious to shine as a

composer as well as a singer (he wrote no less than eight operas and

also an oratorio, "The Last Judgment"), tried his hand on a Samson

opera and succeeded in enlisting the help of Dumas the elder in writing

the libretto. When he was ready to present it at the door of the Grand

Opera the Minister of Fine Arts told him that it was impracticable, as

the stage-setting of the last act alone would cost more than 100,000

francs, Duprez then followed the example set with Rossini's "Mose" in

London and changed the book to make it tell a story of the crusades

which he called "Zephora". Nevertheless the original form was restored

in German and Italian translations of the work, and it had concert

performances in 1857. To Joachim Raff was denied even this poor

comfort. He wrote a German "Simson" between 1851 and 1857. The

conductor at Darmstadt to whom it was first submitted rejected it on

the ground that it was too difficult for his singers. Raff then gave it

to Liszt, with whom he was sojourning at Weimar, and who had taken pity

on his "Konig Alfred"; but the tenor singer at the Weimar opera said

the music was too high for the voice. Long afterward Wagner's friend,

Schnorr von Carolsfeld, saw the score in the hands of the composer. The

heroic stature of the hero delighted him, and his praise moved Raff to

revise the opera; but before this had been done Schnorr died of the

cold contracted while creating the role of Wagner's Tristan at Munich

in 1865. Thus mournfully ended the third episode. As late as 1882 Raff

spoke of taking the opera in hand again, but though he may have done so

his death found the work unperformed and it has not yet seen the light

of the stage-lamps.

Saint-Saens's opera has also passed through many vicissitudes, but has

succumbed to none and is probably possessed of more vigorous life now

than it ever had. It is the recognized operatic masterpiece of the most

resourceful and fecund French musician since Berlioz. Saint-Saens began

the composition of "Samson et Dalila" in 1869. The author of the book,

Ferdinand Lemaire, was a cousin of the composer. Before the breaking

out of the Franco-Prussian War the score was so far on the way to

completion that it was possible to give its second act a private trial.

This was done, an incident of the occasion-which afterward introduced

one element of pathos in its history-being the singing of the part of

Samson by the painter Henri Regnault, who soon after lost his life in

the service of his country. A memorial to him and the friendship which

existed between him and the composer is the "Marche Heroique," which

bears the dead man's name on its title-page. Toward the end of 1872 the

opera was finished. For two years the score rested in the composer's

desk. Then the second act was again brought forth for trial, this time

at the country home of Mme. Viardot, at Croissy, the illustrious

hostess singing the part of Dalila. In 1875 the first act was performed

in concert style by M. Edouard Colonne in Paris. Liszt interested

himself in the opera and secured its acceptance at the Grand Ducal

Opera House of Weimar, where Eduard Lassen brought it out on December

2, 1877. Brussels heard it in 1878; but it did not reach one of the

theatres of France until March 3, 1890, when Rouen produced it at its

Theatre des Arts under the direction of M. Henri Verdhurt. It took

nearly seven months more to reach Paris, where the first representation

was at the Eden Theatre on October 31 of the same year. Two years

later, after it had been heard in a number of French and Italian

provincial theatres, it was given at the Academie Nationale de Musique

under the direction of M. Colonne. The part of Dalila was taken by Mme.

Deschamps-Jehin, that of Samson by M. Vergnet, that of the High Priest

by M. Lassalle. Eight months before this it had been performed as an

oratorio by the Oratorio Society of New York. There were two

performances, on March 25 and 26, 1892, the conductor being Mr. Walter

Damrosch and the principal singers being Frau Marie Ritter-Goetze,

Sebastian Montariol, H. E. Distelhurst, Homer Moore, Emil Fischer, and

Purdon Robinson. London had heard the work twice as an oratorio before

it had a stage representation there on April 26, 1909, but this

performance was fourteen years later than the first at the Metropolitan

Opera House on February 8, 1895. The New York performance was

scenically inadequate, but the integrity of the record demands that the

cast be given here: Samson, Signor Tamagno; Dalila, Mme. Mantelli; High

Priest, Signor Campanari; Abimelech and An Old Hebrew, M. Plancon;

First Philistine, Signor Rinaldini; Second Philistme, Signor de

Vachetti; conductor, Signor Mancinelli. The Metropolitan management did

not venture upon a repetition until the opening night of the season

1915-1916, when its success was such that it became an active factor in

the repertory of the establishment; but by that time it had been made

fairly familiar to the New York public by performances at the Manhattan

Opera House under the management of Mr. Oscar Hammerstein, the first of

which took place on November 13, 1908. Signor Campanini conducted and

the cast embraced Mme. Gerville-Reache as Dalila, Charles Dalmores as

Samson, and M. Dufranne as High Priest. The cast at the Metropolitan

Opera House's revival of the opera on November 15,1915, was as follows:

Dalila, Mme. Margarete Matzenauer; Samson, Signor Enrico Caruso; High

Priest, Signor Pasquale Amato; Abimelech, Herr Carl Schlegel; An Old

Hebrew, M. Leon Rothier; A Philistine Messenger, Herr Max Bloch; First

Philistine, Pietro Audisio; Second Philistine, Vincenzo Reschiglian;

conductor, Signor Polacco.

It would be a curious inquiry to try to determine the source of the

fascination which the story of Manoah's son has exerted upon mankind

for centuries. It bears a likeness to the story of the son of Zeus and

Alcmene, and there are few books on mythology which do not draw a

parallel between the two heroes. Samson's story is singularly brief.

For twenty years he "judged Israel," but the Biblical history which

deals with him consists only of an account of his birth, a recital of

the incidents in which he displayed his prodigious strength and valor,

the tale of his amours, and, at the end, the account of his tragical

destruction, brought about by the weak element in his character.

Commentators have been perplexed by the tale, irrespective of the

adornments which it has received at the hands of the Talmudists. Is

Samson a Hebrew form of the conception personified by the Greek

Herakles? Is he a mythical creature, born in the human imagination of

primitive nature worship--a variant of the Tyrian sun-god Shemesh,

whose name his so curiously resembles? [In Hebrew he is called

Shimshon, and the sun shemesh.] Was he something more than a man of

extraordinary physical strength and extraordinary moral weakness, whose

patriotic virtues and pathetic end have kept his memory alive through

the ages? Have a hundred generations of men to whom the story of

Herakles has appeared to be only a fanciful romance, the product of

that imagination heightened by religion which led the Greeks to exalt

their supreme heroes to the extent of deification, persisted in hearing

and telling the story of Samson with a sympathetic interest which

betrays at least a sub-conscious belief in its verity? Is the story

only a parable enforcing a moral lesson which is as old as humanity? If

so, how got it into the canonical Book of Judges, which, with all its

mythical and legendary material, seems yet to contain a large

substratum of unquestionable history?

There was nothing of the divine essence in Samson as the Hebrews

conceived him, except that spirit of God with which he was directly

endowed in supreme crises. There is little evidence of his possession

of great wisdom, but strong proof of his moral and religious laxity. He

sinned against the laws of Israel's God when he took a Philistine

woman, an idolater, to wife; he sinned against the moral law when he

visited the harlot at Gaza. He was wofully weak in character when he

yielded to the blandishments of Delilah and wrought his own undoing, as

well as that of his people. The disgraceful slavery into which Herakles

fell was not caused by the hero's incontinence or uxoriousness, but a

punishment for crime, in that he had in a fit of madness killed his

friend Iphitus. And the three years which he spent as the slave of

Omphale were punctuated by larger and better deeds than those of Samson

in like situation--bursting the new cords with which the men of Judah

had bound him and the green withes and new ropes with which Delilah

shackled him. The record that Samson "judged Israel in the days of the

Philistines twenty years" leads the ordinary reader to think of him as

a sage, judicial personage, whereas it means only that he was the

political and military leader of his people during that period, lifted

to a magisterial position by his strength and prowess in war. His

achievements were muscular, not mental.

Rabbinical legends have magnified his stature and power in precisely

the same manner as the imagination of the poet of the "Lay of the

Nibelung" magnified the stature and strength of Siegfried. His

shoulders, says the legend, were sixty ells broad; when the Spirit of

God came on him he could step from Zorah to Eshtaol although he was

lame in both feet; the hairs of his head arose and clashed against one

another so that they could be heard for a like distance; he was so

strong that he could uplift two mountains and rub them together like

two clods of earth, Herakles tore asunder the mountain which, divided,

now forms the Straits of Gibraltar and Gates of Hercules.

The parallel which is frequently drawn between Samson and Herakles

cannot be pursued far with advantage to the Hebrew hero. Samson rent a

young lion on the road to Timnath, whither he was going to take his

Philistine wife; Herakles, while still a youthful herdsman, slew the

Thespian lion and afterward strangled the Nemean lion with his hands.

Samson carried off the gates of Gaza and bore them to the top of a hill

before Hebron; Herakles upheld the heavens while Atlas went to fetch

the golden apples of Hesperides. Moreover, the feats of Herakles show a

higher intellectual quality than those of Samson, all of which, save

one, were predominantly physical. The exception was the trick of tying

300 foxes by their tails, two by two, with firebrands between and

turning them loose to burn the corn of the Philistines. An ingenious

way to spread a conflagration, probably, but primitive, decidedly

primitive. Herakles was a scientific engineer of the modern school; he

yoked the rivers Alpheus and Peneus to his service by turning their

waters through the Augean stables and cleansing them of the deposits of

3000 oxen for thirty years. Herakles had excellent intellectual

training; Rhadamanthus taught him wisdom and virtue, Linus music. We

know nothing about the bringing up of Samson save that "the child grew

and the Lord blessed him. And the Lord began to move him at times in

the camp of Dan between Zorah and Eshtaol." Samson made little use of

his musical gifts, if he had any, but that little he made well;

Herakles made little use of his musical training, and that little he

made ill. He lost his temper and killed his music master with his lute;

Samson, after using an implement which only the black slaves of our

South have treated as a musical instrument, to slay a thousand

Philistines, jubilated in song:--

With the jawbone of an ass

Heaps upon heaps!

With the jawbone of an ass

Have I slain a thousand men!

The vast fund of human nature laid bare in the story of Samson is, it

appears to me, quite sufficient to explain its popularity, and account

for its origin. The hero's virtues--strength, courage, patriotism--are

those which have ever won the hearts of men, and they present

themselves as but the more admirable, as they are made to appear more

natural, by pairing with that amiable weakness, susceptibility to

woman's charms.

After all Samson is a true type of the tragic hero, whatever Dr.

Chrysander or another may say. He is impelled by Fate into a commission

of the follies which bring about the wreck of his body. His marriage

with the Philistine woman in Timnath was part of a divine plot, though

unpatriotic and seemingly impious. When his father said unto him: "Is

there never a woman among the daughters of thy brethren or among all my

people that thou goest to take a wife of the uncircumcised

Philistines?" he did not know that "it was of the Lord that he sought

an occasion against the Philistines." Out of that wooing and winning

grew the first of the encounters which culminated in the destruction of

the temple of Dagon, when "the dead which he slew at his death were

more than they which he slew in his life." So his yielding to the

pleadings of his wife when she betrayed the answer to his riddle and

his succumbing to the wheedling arts of Delilah when he betrayed the

secret of his strength (acts incompatible with the character of an

ordinary strong and wise man) were of the type essential to the

machinery of the Greek drama.

A word about the mythological interpretation of the characters which

have been placed in parallel: It may be helpful to an understanding of

the Hellenic mind to conceive Herakles as a marvellously strong man,

first glorified into a national hero and finally deified. So, too, the

theory, that Herakles sinking down upon his couch of fire is but a

symbol of the declining sun can be entertained without marring the

grandeur of the hero or belittling Nature's phenomenon; but it would

obscure our understanding of the Hebrew intellect and profane the

Hebrew religion to conceive Samson as anything but the man that the

Bible says he was; while to make of him, as Ignaz Golziher suggests, a

symbol of the setting sun whose curly locks (crines Phoebi) are sheared

by Delilah-Night, would bring contumely upon one of the most beautiful

and impressive of Nature's spectacles. Before the days of comparative

mythology scholars were not troubled by such interpretations. Josephus

disposes of the Delilah episode curtly: "As for Samson being ensnared

by a woman, that is to be ascribed to human nature, which is too weak

to resist sin."

It is not often that an operatic figure invites to such a study as that

which I have attempted in the case of Samson, and it may be that the

side-wise excursion in which I have indulged invites criticism of the

kind illustrated in the metaphor of using a club to brain a gnat. But I

do not think so. If heroic figures seem small on the operatic stage, it

is the fault of either the author or the actor. When genius in a

creator is paired with genius in an interpreter, the hero of an opera

is quite as deserving of analytical study as the hero of a drama which

is spoken. No labor would be lost in studying the character of Wagner's

heroes in order to illuminate the impersonations of Niemann, Lehmann,

or Scaria; nor is Maurel's lago less worthy of investigation than Edwin

Booth's.

The character of Delilah presents even more features of interest than

that of the man of whom she was the undoing, and to those features I

purpose to devote some attention presently.

There is no symbolism in Saint-Saens's opera. It is frankly a piece for

the lyric theatre, albeit one in which adherence to a plot suggested by

the Biblical story compelled a paucity of action which had to be made

good by spectacle and music. The best element in a drama being that

which finds expression in action and dialogue, and these being

restricted by the obvious desire of the composers to avoid such

extraneous matter as Rossini and others were wont to use to add

interest to their Biblical operas (the secondary love stories, for

instance), Saint-Saens could do nothing else than employ liberally the

splendid factor of choral music which the oratorio form brought to his

hand.

We are introduced to that factor without delay. Even before the first

scene is opened to our eyes we hear the voice of the multitude in

prayer. The Israelites, oppressed by their conquerors and sore stricken

at the reflection that their God has deserted them, lament, accuse,

protest, and pray. Before they have been heard, the poignancy of their

woe has been published by the orchestra, which at once takes its place

beside the chorus as a peculiarly eloquent expositor of the emotions

and passions which propel the actors in the drama. That mission and

that eloquence it maintains from the beginning to the final

catastrophe, the instrumental band doing its share toward

characterizing the opposing forces, emphasizing the solemn dignity of

the Hebrew religion and contrasting it with the sensuous and sensual

frivolity of the worshippers of Dagon. The choral prayer has for its

instrumental substructure an obstinate syncopated figure,

[figure: an musical score excerpt]

which rises with the agonized cries of the people and sinks with their

utterances of despair. The device of introducing voices before the

disclosure of visible action in an opera is not new, and in this case

is both uncalled for and ineffective. Gounod made a somewhat similar

effort in his "Romeo et Juliette," where a costumed group of singers

presents a prologue, vaguely visible through a gauze curtain. Meyerbeer

tried the expedient in "Le Pardon de Ploermel," and the siciliano in

Mascagni's "Cavalleria Rusticana" and the prologue in Leoncavallo's

"Pagliacci" are other cases in point. Of these only the last can be

said to achieve its purpose in arresting the early attention of the

audience. When the curtain opens we see a public place in Gaza in front

of the temple of Dagon. The Israelites are on their knees and in

attitudes of mourning, among them Samson. The voice of lamentation

takes a fugal form--

[figure: a musical score excerpt]

as the oppressed people tell of the sufferings which they have

endured:--

Nous avons vu nos cites renversees

Et les gentils profanants ton autel, etc.

The expression rises almost to the intensity of sacrilegious accusation

as the people recall to God the vow made to them in Egypt, but sinks to

accents of awe when they reflect upon the incidents of their former

serfdom. Now Samson stands forth. In a broad arioso, half recitative,

half cantilena, wholly in the oratorio style when it does not drop into

the mannerism of Meyerbeerian opera, he admonishes his brethren of

their need to trust in God, their duty to worship Him, of His promises

to aid them, of the wonders that He had already wrought in their

behalf; he bids them to put off their doubts and put on their armor of

faith and valor. As he proceeds in his preachment he develops somewhat

of the theatrical pose of John of Leyden in "The Prophet." The

Israelites mutter gloomily of the departure of their days of glory, but

gradually take warmth from the spirit which has obsessed Samson and

pledge themselves to do battle with the foe with him under the guidance

of Jehovah.

Now Abimelech, Satrap of Gaza, appears surrounded by Philistine

soldiers. He rails at the Israelites as slaves, sneers at their God as

impotent and craven, lifts up the horn of Dagon, who, he says, shall

pursue Jehovah as a falcon pursues a dove. The speech fills Samson with

a divine anger, which bursts forth in a canticle of prayer and

prophecy. There is a flash as of swords in the scintillant scale

passages which rush upward from the eager, angry, pushing figure which

mutters and rages among the instruments. The Israelites catch fire from

Samson's ecstatic ardor and echo the words in which he summons them to

break their chains. Abimelech rushes forward to kill Samson, but the

hero wrenches the sword from the Philistine's hand and strikes him

dead. The satrap's soldiers would come to his aid, but are held in fear

by the hero, who is now armed. The Israelites rush off to make war on

their oppressors. The High Priest comes down from the temple of Dagon

and pauses where the body of Abimelech lies. Two Philistines tell of

the fear which had paralyzed them when Samson showed his might. The

High Priest rebukes them roundly for their cowardice, but has scarcely

uttered his denunciation before a Messenger enters to tell him that

Samson and his Israelitish soldiers have overrun and ravaged the

country. Curses and vows of vengeance against Israel, her hero, and her

God from the mouth of Dagon's servant. One of his imprecations is

destined to be fulfilled:--

Maudit soit le sein de la femme

Qui lui donna le jour!

Qu'enfin une compagne infame

Trahisse son amour!

Revolutions run a rapid course in operatic Palestine. The insurrection

is but begun with the slaying of Abimelech, yet as the Philistines,

bearing away his body, leave the scene, it is only to make room for the

Israelites, chanting of their victory. We expect a sonorous hymn of

triumph, but the people of God have been chastened and awed by their

quick deliverance, and their paean is in the solemn tone of temple

psalmody, the first striking bit of local color which the composer has

introduced into his score--a reticence on his part of which it may be

said that it is all the more remarkable from the fact that local color

is here completely justified:--

[figure: a musical score excerpt, sung to the words "Praise, ye

Jehovah! Tell all the wondrous story! Psalms of praise loudly swell!]

"Hymne de joie, hymne de deliverance

Montez vers l'Eternel!"

It is a fine piece of dramatic characterization; which is followed by

one whose serene beauty is heightened by contrast. Dalila and a company

of singing and dancing Philistine women come in bearing garlands of

flowers. Not only Samson's senses, our own as well, are ravished by the

delightful music:--

Voici le printemps, nous portant des fleurs

Pour orner le front des guerriers vainquers!

Melons nos accents aux parfums des roses

A peine ecloses!

Avec l'oiseau chantons, mes soeurs!

[figure: a musical score excerpt sung to the words "Now Spring's

generous band, Brings flowers to the land"]

Dalila is here and it is become necessary to say something of her,

having said so much about the man whose destruction she accomplished.

Let the ingenious and erudite Philip Hale introduce her: "Was Delilah a

patriotic woman, to be ranked with Jael and Judith, or was she merely a

courtesan, as certain opera singers who impersonate her in the opera

seem to think? E. Meier says that the word 'Delilah' means 'the

faithless one.' Ewald translates it 'traitress,' and so does Ranke.

Knobel characterizes her as 'die Zarte,' which means tender, delicate,

but also subtle. Lange is sure that she was a weaver woman, if not an

out-and-out 'zonah.' There are other Germans who think the word is akin

to the verb 'einlullen,' to lull asleep. Some liken it to the Arabic

dalilah, a woman who misguides, a bawd. See in 'The Thousand Nights and

a Night' the speech of the damsel to Aziz: 'If thou marry me thou wilt

at least be safe from the daughter of Dalilah, the Wily One.' Also 'The

Rogueries of Dalilah, the Crafty, and her daughter, Zayrah, the Coney

Catcher.'"

We are directly concerned here with the Dalila of the opera, but Mr.

Hale invites us to an excursion which offers a pleasant occupation for

a brief while, and we cheerfully go with him. The Biblical Delilah is a

vague figure, except in two respects: She is a woman of such charms

that she wins the love of Samson, and such guile and cupidity that she

plays upon his passion and betrays him to the lords of the Philistines

for pay. The Bible knows nothing of her patriotism, nor does the sacred

historian give her the title of Samson's wife, though it has long been

the custom of Biblical commentators to speak of her in this relation.

St. Chrysostom set the fashion and Milton followed it:--

But who is this? What thing of sea or land--

Female of sex it seems--

That, so bedeck'd, ornate and gay

Comes this way sailing

Like a stately ship

Of Tarsus, bound for the isles

Of Javan or Gadire,

With all her bravery on, and tackle trim,

Sails fill'd and streamers waving,

Courted by all the winds that hold them play;

An amber scent of odorous perfume--

Her harbinger, a damsel train behind?

Some rich Philistian matron she may seem;

And now, at nearer view, no other certain

Than Dalila, thy wife.

It cannot be without significance that the author of the story in the

Book of Judges speaks in a different way of each of the three women who

play a part in the tragedy of Samson's life. The woman who lived among

the vineyards of Timnath, whose murder Samson avenged, was his wife.

She was a Philistine, but Samson married her according to the

conventional manner of the time and, also according to the manner of

the time, she kept her home with her parents after her marriage.

Wherefore she has gotten her name in the good books of the sociological

philosophers who uphold the matronymic theory touching early society.

The woman of Gaza whom Samson visited what time he confounded his

would-be captors by carrying off the doors of the gates of the city was

curtly "an harlot." Of the third woman it is said only that it came to

pass that Samson "loved a woman in the Valley of Sorek, whose name was

Delilah." Thereupon follows the story of her bribery by the lords of

the Philistines and her betrayal of her lover. Evidently a licentious

woman who could not aspire even to the merit of the heroine of Dekker's

play.

Milton not only accepted the theory of her wifehood, but also

attributed patriotic motives to her. She knew that her name would be

defamed "in Dan, in Judah and the bordering tribes."

But in my country, where I most desire,

In Eeron, Gaza, Asdod and in Gath,

I shall be nam'd among the famousest

Of women, sung at solemn festivals,

Living and dead recorded, who to save

Her country from a fierce destroyer, chose

Above the faith of wedlock bands; my tomb

With odours visited and annual flowers;

Not less renown'd than in Mount Ephraim

Jael, who, with inhospitable guile,

Smote Sisera sleeping.

In the scene before us Dalila is wholly and simply a siren, a

seductress who plays upon the known love of Samson from motives which

are not disclosed. As yet one may imagine her moved by a genuine

passion. She turns her lustrous black eyes upon him as she hails him a

double victor over his foes and her heart, and invites him to rest from

his arms in her embraces in the fair valley of Sorek. Temptation seizes

upon the soul of Samson. He prays God to make him steadfast; but she

winds her toils the tighter: It is for him that she has bound a coronet

of purple grapes upon her forehead and entwined the rose of Sharon in

her ebon tresses. An Old Hebrew warns against the temptress and Samson

agonizingly invokes a veil over the beauty that has enchained him.

"Extinguish the fires of those eyes which enslave me."--thus he.

"Sweet is the lily of the valley, pleasant the juices of mandragora,

but sweeter and more pleasant are my kisses!"--thus she.

The Old Hebrew warns again: "If thou give ear to her honeyed phrases,

my son, curses will alight on thee which no tears that thou may'st weep

will ever efface."

But still the siren song rings in his ears. The maidens who had come

upon the scene with Dalila (are they priestesses of Dagon?) dance,

swinging their floral garlands seductively before the eyes of Samson

and his followers. The hero tries to avoid the glances which Dalila,

joining in the dance, throws upon him. It is in vain; his eyes follow

her through all the voluptuous postures and movements of the dance.

[figure: a musical score excerpt]

And Dalila sings "Printemps qui commence"--a song often heard in

concert-rooms, but not so often as the air with which the love-duet in

the second act reaches its culmination, which is popularly held also to

mark the climax of the opera. That song is wondrously insinuating in

its charm; it pulsates with passion, so much so, indeed, that it is

difficult to conceive that its sentiments are feigned, but this is

lovelier in its fresh, suave, graceful, and healthy beauty:--

[figure: a musical score excerpt, sung to the words "The Spring with

her dower of bird and flower, brings hope in her train."]

As Dalila leaves the scene her voice and eyes repeat their lure, while

Samson's looks and acts betray the trouble of his soul.

It is not until we see and hear Dalila in the second act that she is

revealed to us in her true character. Not till now does she disclose

the motives of her conduct toward her lover. Night is falling in the

valley of Sorek, the vale which lies between the hill country which the

Israelites entered from the East, and the coast land which the

Philistines, supposedly an island people, invaded from the West.

Dalila, gorgeously apparelled, is sitting on a rock near the portico of

her house. The strings of the orchestra murmur and the chromatic figure

which we shall hear again in her love-song coos in the wood-winds:

[figure: a musical score excerpt]

She awaits him whom passion has made her slave in full confidence of

her hold upon him.

Samson, recherchant ma presence,

Ce soir doit venir en ces lieux.

Voici l'heure de la vengeance

Qui doit satisfaire nos dieux!

Amour! viens aider ma faiblesse!

The vengeance of her gods shall be glutted; it is to that end she

invokes the power of love to strengthen her weakness. A passion like

his will not down--that she knows. To her comes the High Priest:

Samson's strength, he says, is supernatural and flows from a vow with

which he was consecrated to effect the glory of Israel. Once while he

lay in her arms that strength had deserted him, but now, it is said, he

flouts her love and doubts his own passion. There is no need to try to

awaken

[figure: a musical score excerpt]

jealousy in the heart of Dalila; she hates Samson more bitterly than

the leader of his enemies. She is not mercenary, like the Biblical

woman; she scorns the promise of riches which the High Priest offers so

she obtain the secret of the Hebrew's strength. Thrice had she essayed

to learn that secret and thrice had he set her spell at naught. Now she

will assail him with tears--a woman's weapon.

The rumblings of thunder are heard; the scene is lit up by flashes of

lightning. Running before the storm, which is only a precursor and a

symbol of the tempest which is soon to rend his soul, Samson comes.

Dalila upbraids her lover, rebukes his fears, protests her grief.

Samson cannot withstand her tears. He confesses his love, but he must

obey the will of a higher power. "What god is mightier than Love?" Let

him but doubt her constancy and she will die. And she plays her trump

card: "Mon coeur s'ouvre a ta voix," while the fluttering strings and

cooing wood-winds insinuate themselves into the crevices of Samson's

moral harness and loosen the rivets that hold it together:--

[figure: a musical score excerpt to the words "My heart, at thy dear

voice"]

Herein lies the strength and the weakness of music: it must fain be

truthful. Dalila's words may be hypocritical, but the music speaks the

speech of genuine passion. Not until we hear the refrain echoed

mockingly in the last scene of the drama can we believe that the

passion hymned in this song is feigned. And we almost deplore hat the

composer put it to such disgraceful use. Samson hears the voice of his

God in the growing and again hesitates. The storm bursts as Dalila

shrieks out the hate that fills her and runs toward her dwelling.

Beethoven sought to suggest external as well as internal peace in the

"Dona nobis" of his Mass in D by mingling the sounds of war with the

prayer for peace; Saint-Saens pictures the storm in nature and in

Samson's soul by the music which accompanies the hero as he raises his

hands mutely in prayer; then follows the temptress with faltering steps

and enters her dwelling. The tempest reaches its climax; Dalila appears

at the window with a shout to the waiting Philistine soldiery below.

The voice of Samson cuts through the stormy night: "Trahison!"

Act III.--First scene: A prison in Gaza. Samson, shorn of his flowing

locks, which as a Nazarite he had vowed should never be touched by

shears, labors at the mill. He has been robbed of his eyes and darkness

has settled down upon him; darkness, too, upon the people whom his

momentary weakness had given back into slavery.

"Total eclipse!" Saint-Saens has won our admiration for the solemn

dignity with which he has invested the penitent confession of the blind

hero. But who shall hymn the blindness of Manoah's son after Milton and

Handel? From a crowd of captive Hebrews outside the prison walls come

taunting accusations, mingled with supplications to God. We recognize

again the national mood of the psalmody of the first act. The entire

scene is finely conceived. It is dramatic in a lofty sense, for its

action plays on the stage of the heart. Samson, contrite, humble,

broken in spirit, with a prayer for his people's deliverance, is led

away to be made sport of in the temple of Dagon. There, before the

statue of the god, grouped among the columns and before the altar the

High Priest and the lords of the Philistines. Dalila, too, with maidens

clad for the lascivious dance, and the multitude of Philistia. The

women's choral song to spring which charmed us in the first act is

echoed by mixed voices. The ballet which follows is a prettily exotic

one, with an introductory cadence marked by the Oriental scale, out of

which the second dance melody is constructed--a scale which has the

peculiarity of an interval composed of three semitones, and which we

know from the song of the priestesses in Verdi's "Aida":--

[figure: a musical score excerpt]

[figure: a musical score excerpt]

The High Priest makes mock of the Judge of Israel: Let him empty the

wine cup and sing the praise of his vanquisher! Dalila, in the pride of

her triumph, tauntingly tells him how simulated love had been made to

serve her gods, her hate, and her nation. Samson answers only in

contrite prayer. Together in canonic imitation (the erudite form does

not offend, but only gives dignity to the scene) priest and siren offer

a libation on the altar of the Fish god.

[figure: a musical score excerpt]

The flames flash upward from the altar. Now a supreme act of insolent

impiety; Samson, too, shall sacrifice to Dagon. A boy is told to lead

him where all can witness his humiliation. Samson feels that the time

for retribution upon his enemies is come. He asks to be led between the

marble pillars that support the roof of the temple. Priests and people,

the traitress and her dancing women, the lords of the Philistines, the

rout of banqueters and worshippers--all hymn the praise of Dagon. A

brief supplication to Israel's God--

"And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars upon which the house

stood and on which it was borne up, of the one with his right hand and

of the other with his left.

"And Samson said, 'Let me die with the Philistines.' And he bowed

himself with all his might: and the house fell upon the lords and upon

all the people that were therein. So the dead which he slew at his

death were more than they which he slew in his life."

CHAPTER V

"DIE KONIGIN VON SABA"