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"

The most obvious reason why Goldmark's "Konigin von Saba" should be seen and heard with pleasure lies in its book and scenic investiture. Thoughtfully considered the book is not one of great worth, but in the handling of things which give pleasure to the superficial observer it is admirable. In the first place it presents a dramatic story which is rational; which strongly enlists the interest if not the sympathies of the observer; which is unhackneyed; which abounds with imposing spectacles with which the imagination of childhood already had made play, that are not only intrinsically brilliant and fascinating but occur as necessary adjuncts of the story. Viewed from its ethical side and considered with reference to the sources whence its elements sprang, it falls under a considerable measure of condemnation, as will more plainly appear after its incidents have been rehearsed.

The title of the opera indicates that the Biblical story of the visit of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon had been drawn on for the plot. This is true, but only in a slight degree. Sheba's Queen comes to Solomon in the opera, but that is the end of the draft on the Scriptural legend so far as she is concerned. Sulamith, who figures in the drama, owes her name to the Canticles, from which it was borrowed by the librettist, but no element of her character nor any of the incidents in which she is involved. The "Song of Songs, which is Solomon's" contributes a few lines of poetry to the book, and a ritualistic service which is celebrated in the temple finds its original text in the opening verses of Psalms lxvii and cxvii, but with this I have enumerated all that the opera owes to the Bible. It is not a Biblical opera, in the degree that Mehul's "Joseph," Rossini's "Moses," or Rubinstein's "Maccabees" is Biblical, to say nothing of Saint-Saens's "Samson et Dalila." Solomon's magnificent reign and marvellous wisdom, which contribute a few factors to the sum of the production, belong to profane as well as to sacred history and it will be found most agreeable to deeply rooted preconceptions to think of some other than the Scriptural Solomon as the prototype of the Solomon of Mosenthal and Goldmark, who, at the best, is a sorry sort of sentimentalist. The local color has been borrowed from the old story; the dramatic motive comes plainly from Wagner's "Tannhauser."

Assad, a favorite courtier, is sent by Solomon to extend greetings and a welcome to the Queen of Sheba, who is on the way to visit the king, whose fame for wealth and wisdom has reached her ears in far Arabia. Assad is the type (though a milk-and-watery one, it must be confessed) of manhood struggling between the things that are of the earth and the things which are of heaven--between a gross, sensual passion and a pure, exalting love. He is betrothed to Sulamith, the daughter of the High Priest of the temple, who awaits his return from Solomon's palace and leads her companions in songs of gladness. Assad meets the Queen at Gath, performs his mission, and sets out to return, but, exhausted by the heat of the day, enters the forest on Mount Lebanon and lies down on a bank of moss to rest. There the sound of plashing waters arrests his ear. He seeks the cause of the grateful noise and comes upon a transportingly beautiful woman bathing. The nymph, finding herself observed, does not, like another Diana, cause the death of her admirer, but discloses herself to be a veritable Wagnerian Venus. She clips him in her arms and he falls at her feet; but a reed rustles and the charmer flees. These incidents we do not see. They precede the opening of the opera, and we learn of them from Assad's narration. Assad returns to Jerusalem, where, conscience stricken, he seeks to avoid his chaste bride. To Solomon, however, he confesses his adventure, and the king sets the morrow as his wedding day with Sulamith.

The Queen of Sheba arrives, and when she raises her veil, ostensibly to show unto Solomon the first view of her features that mortal man has ever had vouchsafed him, Assad recognizes the heroine of his adventure in the woods on Lebanon. His mind is in a maze; bewilderingly he addresses her, and haughtily he is repulsed. But the woman has felt the dart no less than Assad; she seeks him at night in the palace garden; whither she had gone to brood over her love and the loss which threatens her on the morrow, and the luring song of her slave draws him again into her arms.

Before the altar in the temple, just as Assad is about to pronounce the words which are to bind him to Sulamith, she confronts him again, on the specious pretext that she brings gifts for the bride. Assad again addresses her. Again he is denied. Delirium seizes upon his brain; he loudly proclaims the Queen as the goddess of his devotion. The people are panic-stricken at the sacrilege and rush from the temple; the priests cry anathema; Sulamith bemoans her fate; Solomon essays words of comfort; the High Priest intercedes with heaven; the soldiery, led by Baal-Hanan, overseer of the palace, enter to lead the profaner to death. Now Solomon claims the right to fix his punishment. The Queen, fearful that her prey may escape her, begs his life as a boon, but Solomon rejects her appeal; Assad must work out his salvation by overcoming temptation and mastering his wicked passion. Sulamith approaches amid the wailings of her companions. She is about to enter a retreat on the edge of the Syrian desert, but she, too, prays for the life of Assad. Solomon, in a prophetic ecstasy, foretells Assad's deliverance from sin and in a vision sees a meeting between him and his pure love under a palm tree in the desert. Assad is banished to the sandy waste; there a simoom sweeps down upon him; he falls at the foot of a lonely palm to die, after calling on Sulamith with his fleeting breath. She comes with her wailing maidens, sees the fulfilment of Solomon's prophecy, and Assad dies in her arms. "Thy beloved is thine, in love's eternal realm," sing the maidens, while a mirage shows the wicked Queen, with her caravan of camels and elephants, returning to her home.

The parallel between this story and the immeasurably more poetical and beautiful one of "Tannhauser" is apparent to half an eye. Sulamith is Elizabeth, the Queen is Venus, Assad is Tannhauser, Solomon is Wolfram von Eschenbach. The ethical force of the drama-- it has some, though very little--was weakened at the performances at the Metropolitan Opera House [footnote: Goldmark's opera was presented for the first time in America at the Metropolitan Opera House on December 2, 1885. Cast: Sulamith, Fraulein Lilli Lehmann; die Konigin von Saba, Frau Kramer-Wiedl; Astaroth, Fraulein Marianne Brandt; Solomon, Herr Adolph Robinson; Assad, Herr Stritt; Der Hohe Priester, Herr Emil Fischer; Baal-Hanan, Herr-Alexi. Anton Seidl conducted, and the opera had fifteen representations in the season. These performances were in the original German. On April 3, 1888, an English version was presented at the Academy of Music by the National Opera Company, then in its death throes. The opera was revived at the Metropolitan Opera House by Mr. Conried in the season 1905-1906 and had five performances.] in New York by the excision from the last act of a scene in which the Queen attempts to persuade Assad to go with her to Arabia. Now Assad rises superior to his grosser nature and drives the temptress away, thus performing the saving act demanded by Solomon.

Herr Mosenthal, who made the libretto of "Die Konigin von Saba," treated this material, not with great poetic skill, but with a cunning appreciation of the opportunities which it offers for dramatic effect. The opera opens with a gorgeous picture of the interior of Solomon's palace, decked in honor of the coming guest. There is an air of joyous expectancy over everything. Sulamith's entrance introduces the element of female charm to brighten the brilliancy of the picture, and her bridal song--in which the refrain is an excerpt from the Canticles, "Thy beloved is thine, who feeds among the roses"--enables the composer to indulge his strong predilection and fecund gift for Oriental melody. The action