LE PROPHÈTE
THE PROPHET

Act I. At the foot of Count Oberthal's castle, near Dordrecht, Holland, peasants and mill hands are assembled. Bertha and Fides draw near. The latter is bringing to Bertha a betrothal ring from her son John, who is to marry her on the morrow. But permission must first be obtained from Count Oberthal as lord of the domain. The women are here to seek it.

There arrive three sombre looking men, who strive to rouse the people to revolt against tyranny. They are the Anabaptists, Jonas, Matthisen, and Zacharias. The Count, however, who chances to come out of the castle with his followers, recognizes in Jonas a steward who was discharged from his employ. He orders his soldiers to beat the three men with the flat of their swords. John's mother and Bertha make their plea to Oberthal. John and Bertha have loved ever since he rescued her from drowning in the Meuse. Admiring Bertha's beauty, Oberthal refuses to give permission for her to marry John, but, instead, orders her seized and borne to the castle for his own diversion. The people are greatly agitated and, when the three Anabaptists reappear, throw themselves at their feet, and on rising make threatening gestures toward the castle.

Act II. In John's inn at Leyden are the three Anabaptists and a throng of merry-making peasants. Full of longing for Bertha, John is thinking of the morrow. The Anabaptists discover that he bears a remarkable resemblance to the picture of King David in the Cathedral of Münster. They believe this resemblance can be made of service to their plans. John tells them of a strange dream he has had, and in which he found himself standing under the dome of a temple with people prostrate before him. They interpret it for him as evidence that he will mount a throne, and urge him to follow them. But for him there is but one throne—that of the kingdom of love with Bertha.

At that moment, however, she rushes in and begs him quickly to hide her. She has escaped from Oberthal, who is in pursuit. Oberthal and his soldiers enter. The Count threatens that if John does not deliver over Bertha to him, his mother, whom the soldiers have captured on the way to the inn, shall die. She is brought in and forced to her knees. A soldier with a battle-axe stands over her. After a brief struggle John's love for his mother conquers. He hands over Bertha to Oberthal. She is led away. Fides is released.

The three Anabaptists return. Now John is ready to join them, if only to wreak vengeance on Oberthal. They insist that he come at once, without even saying farewell to his mother, who must be kept in ignorance of their plans. John consents and hurries off with them.

Act III. In the winter camp of the Anabaptists in a forest of Westphalia, before Münster. On a frozen lake people are skating. The people have risen against their oppressors. John has been proclaimed a prophet of God. At the head of the Anabaptists he is besieging Münster.

The act develops in three scenes. The first reveals the psychological medley of fanaticism and sensuality of the Anabaptists and their followers. In the second John enters. Oberthal is delivered into his hands. From him John learns that Bertha again has escaped from the castle and is in Münster. The three Anabaptist leaders wish to put the Count to death. But John, saying that Bertha shall be his judge, puts off the execution, much to the disgust of the three fanatics, who find John assuming more authority than is agreeable to them. This scene, the second of the act, takes place in Zachariah's tent. The third scene shows again the camp of the Anabaptists. The leaders, fearing John's usurpation of power, have themselves headed an attack by their followers on Münster and met with defeat. The rabble they have led is furious and ready to turn even against John. He, however, by sheer force of personality coupled with his assumption of superhuman inspiration, rallies the crowd to his standard, and leads it to victory.

Act IV. A public place in Münster. The city is in possession of the Anabaptists. John, once a plain innkeeper of Leyden, has been swept along on the high tide of success and decides to have himself proclaimed Emperor. Meanwhile Fides has been reduced to beggary. The Anabaptists, in order to make her believe that John is dead—so as to reduce to a minimum the chance of her suspecting that the new Prophet and her son are one and the same—left in the inn a bundle of John's clothes stained with blood, together with a script stating that he had been murdered by the Prophet and his followers.

The poor woman has come to Münster to beg. There she meets Bertha, who, when Fides tells her that John has been murdered, vows vengeance upon the Prophet.

Fides follows the crowd into the cathedral, to which the scene changes. When, during the coronation scene, John speaks, and announces that he is the elect of God, the poor beggar woman starts at the sound of his voice. She cries out, "My son!" John's cause is thus threatened and his life at stake. He has claimed divine origin. If the woman is his mother, the people, whom he rules with an iron hand, will denounce and kill him. With quick wit he meets the emergency, and even makes use of it to enhance his authority by improvising an affirmation scene. He bids his followers draw their swords and thrust them into his breast, if the beggar woman again affirms that he is her son. Seeing the swords held ready to pierce him, Fides, in order to save him, now declares that he is not her son—that her eyes, dimmed by age, have deceived her.

Act V. The three Anabaptists, Jonas, Matthisen, and Zacharias, had intended to use John only as an instrument to attain power for themselves. The German Emperor, who is moving on Münster with a large force, has promised them pardon if they will betray the Prophet and usurper into his hands. To this they have agreed, and are ready on his coronation day to betray him.

At John's secret command Fides has been brought to the palace. Here her son meets her. He, whom she has seen in the hour of his triumph and who still is all-powerful, implores her pardon, but in vain, until she, in the belief that he has been impelled to his usurpation of power and bloody deeds only by thirst for vengeance for Bertha's wrongs, forgives him, on condition that he return to Leyden. This he promises in full repentance.

They are joined by Bertha. She has sworn to kill the Prophet whom she blames for the supposed murder of her lover. To accomplish her purpose, she has set a slow fire to the palace. It will blaze up near the powder magazine, when the Prophet and his henchmen are at banquet in the great hall of the palace, and blow up the edifice.

She recognizes her lover. Her joy, however, is short-lived, for at the moment a captain comes to John with the announcement that he has been betrayed and that the Emperor's forces are at the palace gates. Thus Bertha learns that her lover and the bloodstained Prophet are one. Horrified, she plunges a dagger into her heart.

John determines to die, a victim to the catastrophe which Bertha has planned, and which is impending. He joins the banqueters at their orgy. At the moment when all his open and secret enemies are at the table and pledge him in a riotous bacchanale, smoke rises from the floor. Tongues of fire shoot up. Fides, in the general uproar and confusion, calmly joins her son, to die with him, as the powder magazine blows up, and, with a fearful crash the edifice collapses in smoke and flame.

John of Leyden's name was Jan Beuckelszoon. He was born in 1509. In business he was successively a tailor, a small merchant, and an innkeeper. After he had had himself crowned in Münster, that city became a scene of orgy and cruelty. It was captured by the imperial forces June 24, 1535. The following January the "prophet" was put to death by torture. The same fate was meted out to Knipperdölling, his henchman, who had conveniently rid him of one of his wives by cutting off her head.

The music of the first act of "Le Prophète" contains a cheerful chorus for peasants, a cavatina for Bertha, "Mon cœur s'élance" (My heart throbs wildly), in which she voices her joy over her expected union with John; the Latin chant of the three Anabaptists, gloomy yet stirring; the music of the brief revolt of the peasantry against Oberthal; the plea of Fides and Bertha to Oberthal for his sanction of Bertha's marriage to John, "Un jour, dans les flots de la Meuse" (One day in the waves of the Meuse); Oberthal's refusal, and his abduction of Bertha; the reappearance of the three Anabaptists and the renewal of their efforts to impress the people with a sense of the tyranny by which they are oppressed.

Opening the second act, in John's tavern, in the suburbs of Leyden, are the chorus and dance of John's friends, who are rejoicing over his prospective wedding. When the three Anabaptists have recognized his resemblance to the picture of David in the cathedral at Münster, John, observing their sombre yet impressive bearing, tells them of his dream, and asks them to interpret it: "Sous les vastes arceaux d'un temple magnifique" (Under the great dome of a splendid temple). They promise him a throne. But he knows a sweeter empire than the one they promise, that which will be created by his coming union with Bertha. Her arrival in flight from Oberthal and John's sacrifice of her in order to save his mother from death, lead to Fides's solo, "Ah, mon fils" (Ah, my son), one of the great airs for mezzo-soprano.

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Most attractive in the next act is the ballet of the skaters on the frozen lake near the camp of the Anabaptists. The scene is brilliant in conception, the music delightfully rhythmic and graceful. There is a stirring battle song for Zacharias, in which he sings of the enemy "as numerous as the stars," yet defeated. Another striking number is the fantastic trio for Jonas, Zacharias, and Oberthal, especially in the descriptive passage in which in rhythm with the music, Jonas strikes flint and steel, ignites a lantern and by its light recognizes Oberthal. When John rallies the Anabaptists, who have been driven back from under the walls of Münster and promises to lead them to victory, the act reaches a superb climax in a "Hymne Triomphal" for John and chorus, "Roi du Ciel et des Anges" (Ruler of Heaven and the Angels). At the most stirring moment of this finale, as John is being acclaimed by his followers, mists that have been hanging over the lake are dispelled. The sun bursts forth in glory.

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In the next act there is a scene for Fides in the streets of Münster, in which, reduced to penury, she begs for alms. There also is the scene at the meeting of Fides and Bertha. The latter believing, like Fides, that John has been slain by the Anabaptists, vows vengeance upon the Prophet.

The great procession in the cathedral with its march and chorus has been, since the production of "Le Prophète" in 1849, a model of construction for striking spectacular scenes in opera. The march is famous. Highly dramatic is the scene in which Fides first proclaims and then denies that John is her son. The climax of the fifth act is the drinking song, "Versez, que tout respire l'ivresse et le délire" (Quaff, quaff, in joyous measure; breathe, breathe delirious pleasure), in the midst of which the building is blown up, and John perishes with those who would betray him.

During the season of opera which Dr. Leopold Damrosch conducted at the Metropolitan Opera House, 1884-85, when this work of Meyerbeer's led the repertoire in number of performances, the stage management produced a fine effect in the scene at the end of Act III, when the Prophet rallies his followers. Instead of soldiers tamely marching past, as John chanted his battle hymn, he was acclaimed by a rabble, wrought up to a high pitch of excitement, and brandishing cudgels, scythes, pitchforks, and other implements that would serve as weapons. The following season, another stage manager, wishing to outdo his predecessor, brought with him an electric sun from Germany, a horrid thing that almost blinded the audience when it was turned on.

L’AFRICAINE
THE AFRICAN

During a session of the Council, it is announced that the King wishes to send an expedition to search for Diaz, but one of the councillors, Don Alvar, informs the meeting that an officer and two captives, the only survivors from the wreck of Diaz's vessel have arrived. The officer is brought in. He is Vasco da Gama, whom all have believed to be dead. Nothing daunted by the perils he has been through, he has formed a new plan to discover the new land that, he believes, lies beyond Africa. In proof of his conviction that such a land exists, he brings in the captives, Selika and Nelusko, natives, apparently, of a country still unknown to Europe. Vasco then retires to give the Council opportunity to discuss his enterprise.

In his absence Don Pedro, who desires to win Inez for himself, and to head a voyage of discovery, surreptitiously gains possession of an important chart from among Vasco's papers. He then persuades the Grand Inquisitor and the Council that the young navigator's plans are futile. Through his persuasion they are rejected. Vasco, who has again come before the meeting, when informed that his proposal has been set aside, insults the Council by charging it with ignorance and bias. Don Pedro, utilizing the opportunity to get him out of the way, has him seized and thrown into prison.

Act II. Vasco has fallen asleep in his cell. Beside him watches Selika. In her native land she is a queen. Now she is a captive and a slave, her rank, of course, unknown to her captor, since she and Nelusko carefully have kept it from the knowledge of all. Selika is deeply in love with Vasco and is broken-hearted over his passion for Inez, of which she has become aware. But the love of this supposedly savage slave is greater than her jealousy. She protects the slumbering Vasco from the thrust of Nelusko's dagger. For her companion in captivity is deeply in love with her and desperately jealous of the Portuguese navigator for whom she has conceived so ardent a desire. Not only does she save Vasco's life, but on a map hanging on the prison wall she points out to him a route known only to herself and Nelusko, by which he can reach the land of which he has been in search.

Inez, Don Pedro, and their suite enter the prison. Vasco is free. Inez has purchased his freedom through her own sacrifice in marrying Don Pedro. Vasco, through the information received from Selika, now hopes to undertake another voyage of discovery and thus seek to make up in glory what he has lost in love. But he learns that Don Pedro has been appointed commander of an expedition and has chosen Nelusko as pilot. Vasco sees his hopes shattered.

Act III. The scene is on Don Pedro's ship at sea. Don Alvar, a member of the Royal Council, who is with the expedition, has become suspicious of Nelusko. Two ships of the squadron have already been lost. Don Alvar fears for the safety of the flagship. At that moment a Portuguese vessel is seen approaching. It is in command of Vasco da Gama, who has fitted it out at his own expense. Although Don Pedro is his enemy, he comes aboard the admiral's ship to warn him that the vessel is on a wrong course and likely to meet with disaster. Don Pedro, however, accuses him of desiring only to see Inez, who is on the vessel, and charges that his attempted warning is nothing more than a ruse, with that purpose in view. At his command, Vasco is seized and bound. A few moments later, however, a violent storm breaks over the ship. It is driven upon a reef. Savages, for whom Nelusko has signalled, clamber up the sides of the vessel and massacre all save a few whom they take captive.

Act IV. On the left, the entrance to a Hindu temple; on the right a palace. Tropical landscape. Among those saved from the massacre is Vasco. He finds himself in the land which he has sought to discover—a tropical paradise. He is threatened with death by the natives, but Selika, in order to save him, protests to her subjects that he is her husband. The marriage is now celebrated according to East Indian rites. Vasco, deeply touched by Selika's fidelity, is almost determined to abide by his nuptial vow and remain here as Selika's spouse, when suddenly he hears the voice of Inez. His passion for her revives.

Act V. The gardens of Selika's palace. Again Selika makes a sacrifice of love. How easily she could compass the death of Vasco and Inez! But she forgives. She persuades Nelusko to provide the lovers with a ship and bids him meet her, after the ship has sailed, on a high promontory overlooking the sea.

To this the scene changes. On the promontory stands a large manchineel tree. The perfume of its blossoms is deadly to anyone who breathes it in from under the deep shadow of its branches. From here Selika watches the ship set sail. It bears from her the man she loves. Breathing in the poison-laden odour from the tree from under which she has watched the ship depart, she dies. Nelusko seeks her, finds her dead, and himself seeks death beside her under the fatal branches of the manchineel.

Meyerbeer considered "L'Africaine" his masterpiece, and believed that through it he was bequeathing to posterity an immortal monument to his fame. But although he had worked over the music for many years, and produced a wonderfully well-contrived score, his labour upon it was more careful and self-exacting than inspired; and this despite moments of intense interest in the opera. Not "L'Africaine," but "Les Huguenots," is considered his greatest work.

"L'Africaine" calls for one of the most elaborate stage-settings in opera. This is the ship scene, which gives a lengthwise section of a vessel, so that its between-decks and cabin interiors are seen—like the compartments of a huge but neatly partitioned box laid on its oblong side; in fact an amazing piece of marine architecture.

Scribe's libretto has been criticized, and not unjustly, on account of the vacillating character which he gives Vasco da Gama. In the first act this operatic hero is in love with Inez. In the prison scene, in the second act, when Selika points out on the map the true course to India, he is so impressed with her as a teacher of geography, that he clasps the supposed slave-girl to his breast and addresses her in impassioned song. Selika, being enamoured of her pupil, naturally is elated over his progress. Unfortunately Inez enters the prison at this critical moment to announce to Vasco that she has secured his freedom. To prove to Inez that he still loves her Vasco glibly makes her a present of Selika and Nelusko. Selika, so to speak, no longer is on the map, so far as Vasco is concerned, until, in the fourth act, she saves his life by pretending he is her husband. Rapturously he pledges his love to her. Then Inez's voice is heard singing a ballad to the Tagus River—and Selika again finds herself deserted. There is nothing for her to do but to die under the manchineel tree.

"Is the shadow of this tree so fatal?" asks a French authority. "Monsieur Scribe says yes, the naturalists say no." With this question and answer "L'Africaine" may be left to its future fate upon the stage, save that it seems proper to remark that, although the opera is called "The African," Selika appears to have been an East Indian.

Early in the first act of the opera occurs Inez's ballad, "Adieu, mon beau rivage" (Farewell, beloved shores). It is gracefully accompanied by flute and oboe. This is the ballad to the river Tagus, which Vasco hears her sing in the fourth act. The finale of the first act—the scene in which Vasco defies the Royal Council—is a powerful ensemble. The slumber song for Selika in the second act, as she watches over Vasco, "Sur mes genoux, fils du soleil" (On my knees, offspring of the sun) is charming, and entirely original, with many exotic and fascinating touches. Nelusko's air of homage, "Fille des rois, à toi l'hommage" (Daughter of Kings, my homage thine), expresses a sombre loyalty characteristic of the savage whose passion for his queen amounts to fanaticism. The finale of the act is an unaccompanied septette for Inez, Selika, Anna, Vasco, d'Alvar, Nelusko, and Don Pedro.

In the act which plays aboardship, are the graceful chorus of women, "Le rapide et léger navire" (The swiftly gliding ship), the prayer of the sailors, "Ô grand Saint Dominique," and Nelusko's song, "Adamastor, roi des vagues profondes" (Adamastor, monarch of the trackless deep), a savage invocation of sea and storm, chanted to the rising of a hurricane, by the most dramatic figure among the characters in the opera. For like Marcel in "Les Huguenots" and Fides in "Le Prophète," Nelusko is a genuine dramatic creation.

The Indian march and the ballet, which accompanies the ceremony of the crowning of Selika, open the fourth act. The music is exotic, piquant, and in every way effective. The scene is a masterpiece of its kind. There follow the lovely measures of the principal tenor solo of the opera, Vasco's "Paradis sorti du sein de l'onde" (Paradise, lulled by the lisping sea). Then comes the love duet between Vasco and Selika, "Ô transport, ô douce extase" (Oh transport, oh sweet ecstacy). One authority says of it that "rarely have the tender passion, the ecstacy of love been expressed with such force." Now it would be set down simply as a tiptop love duet of the old-fashioned operatic kind.

The scene of Selika's death under the manchineel tree is preceded by a famous prelude for strings in unison supported by clarinets and bassoons, a brief instrumental recital of grief that makes a powerful appeal. The opera ends dramatically with a soliloquy for Selika—"D'ici je vois la mer immense" (From here I gaze upon the boundless deep).

L’ÉTOILE DU NORD AND DINORAH

The score of "L'Étoile du Nord," produced at the Opéra Comique, Paris, February 16, 1854, was assembled from an earlier work, "Das Feldlager in Schlesien" (The Camp in Silesia), produced for the opening of the Berlin Opera House, February 17, 1847; but the plots differ. The story of "L'Étoile du Nord" relates to the love of Peter the Great for Catherine, a cantinière. Their union finally takes place, but not until Catherine has disguised herself as a soldier and served in the Russian camp. After surreptitiously watching Peter and a companion drink and roister in the former's tent with a couple of girls, she loses her reason. When it is happily restored by Peter playing familiar airs to her on his flute, she voices her joy in the show-piece, "La, la, la, air chéri" (La, la, la, beloved song), to which reference already has been made. In the first act Catherine has a "Ronde bohémienne" (Gypsy rondo), the theme of which Meyerbeer took from his opera "Emma de Rohsburg."

"L'Étoile du Nord" is in three acts. There is much military music in the second act—a cavalry chorus, "Beau cavalier au cœur d'acier" (Brave cavalier with heart of steel); a grenadier song with chorus, "Grenadiers, fiers Moscovites" (grenadiers, proud Muscovites), in which the chorus articulates the beat of the drums ("tr-r-r-um"); the "Dessauer" march, a cavalry fanfare "Ah! voyez nos Tartares du Don" (Ah, behold our Cossacks of the Don); and a grenadiers' march: stirring numbers, all of them.

The libretto is by Scribe. The first act scene is laid in Wyborg, on the Gulf of Finland; the second in a Russian camp; the third in Peter's palace in Petrograd. Time, about 1700.

Barbier and Carré wrote the words of "Dinorah," founding their libretto on a Breton tale. Under the title, "Le Pardon de Ploërmel" (the scene of the opera being laid near the Breton village of Ploërmel) the work was produced at the Opéra Comique, Paris, April 4, 1859. It has three principal characters—a peasant girl, Dinorah, soprano; Hoël, a goat-herd, baritone; Corentino, a bagpiper, tenor. The famous baritone, Faure, was the Hoël of the Paris production. Cordier (Dinorah), Amodio (Hoël), Brignoli (Corentino) were heard in the first American production, Academy of Music, New York, November 24, 1864. As Dinorah there also have been heard here Ilma di Murska (Booth's Theatre, 1867), Marimon (with Campanini as Corentino), December 12, 1879; Adelina Patti (1882); Tetrazzini (Manhattan Opera House, 1907); and Galli-Curci (Lexington Theatre, January 28, 1918), with the Chicago Opera Company.

Dinorah is betrothed to Hoël. Her cottage has been destroyed in a storm. Hoël, in order to rebuild it, goes into a region haunted by evil spirits, in search of hidden treasure. Dinorah, believing herself deserted, loses her reason and, with her goat, whose tinkling bell is heard, wanders through the mountains in search of Hoël.

The opera is in three acts. It is preceded by an overture during which there is sung by the villagers behind the curtain the hymn to Our Lady of the Pardon. The scene of the first act is a rough mountain passage near Corentino's hut. Dinorah finds her goat asleep and sings to it a graceful lullaby, "Dors, petite, dors tranquille" (Little one, sleep; calmly rest). Corentino, in his cottage, sings of the fear that comes over him in this lonely region. To dispel it, he plays on his cornemuse. Dinorah enters the hut, and makes him dance with her, while she sings.

When someone is heard approaching, she jumps out of the window. It is Hoël. Both he and Corentino think she is a sprite. Hoël sings of the gold he expects to find, and offers Corentino a share in the treasure if he will aid him lift it. According to the legend, however, the first one to touch the treasure must die, and Hoël's seeming generosity is a ruse to make Corentino the victim of the discovery. The tinkle of the goat's bell is heard. Hoël advises that they follow the sound as it may lead to the treasure. The act closes with a trio, "Ce tintement que l'on entend" (The tinkling tones that greet the ear). Dinorah stands among the high rocks, while Hoël and Corentino, the latter reluctantly, make ready to follow the tinkle of the bell.

A wood of birches by moonlight is the opening scene of the second act. It is here Dinorah sings of "Le vieux sorcier de la montagne" (The ancient wizard of the mountain), following it with the "Shadow Song," "Ombre légère qui suis mes pas" (Fleet shadow that pursues my steps)—"Ombra leggiera" in the more familiar Italian version.

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This is a passage so graceful and, when sung and acted by an Adelina Patti, was so appealing, that I am frank to confess it suggested to me the chapter entitled "Shadows of the Stage," in my novel of opera behind the scenes, All-of-a-Sudden Carmen.

The scene changes to a wild landscape. A ravine bridged by an uprooted tree. A pond, with a sluiceway which, when opened, gives on the ravine. The moon has set. A storm is rising.

Hoël and Corentino enter; later Dinorah. Through the night, that is growing wilder, she sings the legend of the treasure, "Sombre destinée, âme condamnée" (O'ershadowing fate, soul lost for aye).

Her words recall the tragic story of the treasure to Corentino, who now sees through Hoël's ruse, and seeks to persuade the girl to go after the treasure. She sings gaily, in strange contrast to the gathering storm. Lightning flashes show her her goat crossing the ravine by the fallen tree. She runs after her pet. As she is crossing the tree, a thunderbolt crashes. The sluice bursts, the tree is carried away by the flood, which seizes Dinorah in its swirl. Hoël plunges into the wild waters to save her.

Not enough of the actual story remains to make a third act. But as there has to be one, the opening of the act is filled in with a song for a Hunter (bass), another for a Reaper (tenor), and a duet for Goat-herds (soprano and contralto). Hoël enters bearing Dinorah, who is in a swoon. Hoël here has his principal air, "Ah! mon remords te venge" (Ah, my remorse avenges you). Dinorah comes to. Her reason is restored when she finds herself in her lover's arms. The villagers chant the "Hymn of the Pardon." A procession forms for the wedding, which is to make happy Dinorah and Hoël, every one, in fact, including the goat.

Except for the scene of the "Shadow Dance," the libretto is incredibly inane—far more so than the demented heroine. But Meyerbeer evidently wanted to write a pastoral opera. He did so; with the result that now, instead of pastoral, it sounds pasteurized.

Hector Berlioz
(1803-1869)

THIS composer, born Côte-Saint-André, near Grenoble, December 11, 1803; died Paris, March 9, 1869, has had comparatively little influence upon opera considered simply as such. But, as a musician whose skill in instrumentation, and knowledge of the individual tone quality of every instrument in the orchestra amounted to positive genius, his influence on music in general was great. In his symphonies—"Episode de la Vie d'un Artiste" (characterized by him as a symphonie phantastique), its sequel, "Lelio, ou la Retour à la Vie," "Harold en Italie," in which Harold is impersonated by the viola, and the symphonie dramatique, "Roméo et Juliette," he proved the feasibility of producing, by means of orchestral music, the effect of narrative, personal characterization and the visualization of dramatic action, as well as of scenery and material objects. He thus became the founder of "program music."

Of Berlioz's operas not one is known on the stage of English-speaking countries. For "La Damnation de Faust," in its original form, is not an opera but a dramatic cantata. First performed in 1846, it was not made over into an opera until 1893, twenty-four years after the composer's death.

BENVENUTO CELLINI

Act I. The carnival of 1532. We are in the house of the Papal treasurer, Balducci, who has scolded his daughter Teresa for having looked out of the window. The old man is quite vexed, because the Pope has summoned the goldsmith Cellini to Rome.

Balducci's daughter Teresa, however, thinks quite otherwise and is happy. For she has found a note from Cellini in a bouquet that was thrown in to her from the street by a mask—Cellini, of course. A few moments later he appears at her side and proposes a plan of elopement. In the morning, during the carnival mask, he will wear a white monk's hood. His apprentice Ascanio will wear a brown one. They will join her and they will flee together. But a listener has sneaked in—Fieramosca, the Pope's sculptor, and no less Cellini's rival in love than in art. He overhears the plot. Unexpectedly, too, Teresa's father, Balducci, comes back. His daughter still up? In her anxiety to find an excuse, she says she heard a man sneak in. During the search Cellini disappears, and Fieramosca is apprehended. Before he can explain his presence, women neighbours, who have hurried in, drag him off to the public bath house and treat him to a ducking.

Act II. In the courtyard of a tavern Cellini is seated, with his assistants. He is happy in his love, for he places it even higher than fame, which alone heretofore he has courted. He must pledge his love in wine. Unfortunately the host will no longer give him credit. Just then Ascanio brings some money from the Papal treasurer, but in return Cellini must promise to complete his "Perseus" by morning. He promises, although the avaricious Balducci has profited by his necessity and has sent too little money. Ascanio is informed by Cellini of the disguises they are to wear at the carnival, and of his plan that Teresa shall flee with him.

Again Fieramosca has been spying, and overhears the plot. Accordingly he hires the bravo Pompeo to assist him in carrying off Teresa.

A change of scene shows the crowd of maskers on the Piazza di Colonna. Balducci comes along with Teresa. Both from the right and left through the crowd come two monks in the disguise she and her lover agreed upon. Which is the right couple? Soon, however, the two couples fall upon each other. A scream, and one of the brown-hooded monks (Pompeo) falls mortally wounded to the ground. A white-hooded monk (Cellini) has stabbed him. The crowd hurls itself upon Cellini. But at that moment the boom of a cannon gives notice that the carnival celebration is over. It is Ash Wednesday. In the first shock of surprise Cellini escapes, and in his place the other white-hooded monk, Fieramosca, is seized.

Act III. Before Cellini's house, in the background of which, through a curtain, is seen the bronze foundry, the anxious Teresa is assured by Ascanio that her lover is safe. Soon he comes along himself, with a band of monks, to whom he describes his escape. Then Balducci and Fieramosca rush in. Balducci wants to force his daughter to become Fieramosca's bride. The scene is interrupted by the arrival of Cardinal Salviati to see the completed "Perseus." Poor Cellini! Accused of murder and the attempted kidnapping of a girl, the "Perseus" unfinished, the money received for it spent! Heavy punishment awaits him, and another shall receive the commission to finish the "Perseus."

The artist flies into a passion. Another finish his masterpiece! Never! The casting shall be done on the spot! Not metal enough? He seizes his completed works and throws them into the molten mass. The casting begins. The master shatters the mould. The "Perseus," a noble work of art, appears before the eyes of the astonished onlookers—a potent plea for the inspired master. Once more have Art and her faithful servant triumphed over all rivals.

The statue of Perseus, by Benvenuto Cellini, one of the most famous creations of mediæval Italy, is one of the art treasures of Florence.

BEATRICE AND BENEDICT