A Second Book of Operas

till 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

f 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 trans

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 Februa

re 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

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

en 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

d, 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

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

jawbone

upon

jawbone

ain a tho

for its origin. The hero's virtues-strength, courage, patriotism-are those which have ever won the hearts of men, and they present themselves

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

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) ar

o 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 analyti

rest than that of the man of whom she was the undoing, and t

le 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

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 catastrop

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iette," 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 t

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tell of the sufferings w

vu nos cite

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hen 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 proce

es 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 whe

t le sein

donna

une compa

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tes, 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 s

e words "Praise, ye Jehovah! Tell all the wo

ie, hymne de

vers l'

ghtened by contrast. Dalila and a company of singing and dancing Philistine women come in bearing ga

emps, nous por

front des guer

cents aux par

ne ec

au chantons

g to the words "Now Spring's generou

m 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

pt 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 he

s? What thing

of sex

deck'd, orn

his way

state

bound for

an or

bravery on, a

d and strea

the winds that

ent of odor

r, a damsel

listian matro

earer view, n

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ime 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

attributed patriotic motives to her. She knew that her name

ntry, where I

aza, Asdod

am'd among t

ung at sole

ead recorded

om a fierce de

th of wedlock

isited and an

wn'd than in

with inhosp

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he 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 tight

of those eyes which

t the juices of mandragora, but sweeter a

honeyed phrases, my son, curses will alight on thee w

winging their floral garlands seductively before the eyes of Samson and his followers. The hero tries to avoid the glances which Dalila,

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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, s

the words "The Spring with her dower of bi

yes repeat their lure, while Samson's look

e 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. Dal

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as made her slave in full con

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it venir e

eure de l

atisfaire

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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.

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ical woman; she scorns the promise of riches which the High Priest offers so she obtain the secret of the Hebrew's strength. Thrice

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

excerpt to the words "My

ear 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 suc

torm 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 dwe

d should never be touched by shears, labors at the mill. He has been robbed of his eyes and darkness has se

ly 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

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, 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

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iation. 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 peop

ich the house stood and on which it was borne up, of th

s might: and the house fell upon the lords and upon all the people that were therein.