New-York tribune., 1916-07-23

ter, Hezekiah, Belshazzar, Abraham and
Isaac, Jonah, Job, the judgment OF
Solomon and the Last Judgment be-
came the staple of opera composers in
Italy and Germany for more than
century. Alessandro Scarlatti, whose
name looms large in the history OF
opera, also composed oratorios, and
Mr.. z. J. Dent, his biographer, has
, pointed out that Except that the
operas are in three acts and the ora
torios in two, the only difference is in
the absence of professedly comic char
acters and of the formal statement in
which the author protests that the
words fato. dio. dieta. etc, are only
scherzi poetici and imply nothing con-
trary 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 shall attempt a discus
sion 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 sdcra uztone
employing the larger apparatus which
modern invention and enterprise have
placed at the command of the play
wright, stage manager and composer.
! 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 COM
ing 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.
Dttersdorf has left for US a descrip-
ton 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 rep
reservations of Mendelssohn's eli
jah." l have witnessed as we'll as
heard a performance Of "Acis and
Galatea" and been entertained with the
spectacle Of Polyphem,ls crushing the
head of presumptuous Acis with &
stave like another Fdfner while sing
ing Ely, thou massy ruin, hy- TO the
bludgeon which was playing under
study for the fatal rock.
This diverting incident brings me
70 a consideration Of one Of the diff
culties which stand in the way of ef-
fective stage pictures combined with
action in the case Of some of the most
admired of the subjects for oratorios
or sacred opera. 1t was not the Lord
| Chamberlain who stood in the way Of
Saint-Saens's Samson ct 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 beauti-
full and inspiriting music. Samson ct
Dalila" was we'll known in its con-
cert form when the management OF
] the Metropolitan Opera House first at
tempted to introduce II as an opera.
It had single performance In the
season Of 1S94-'95 and then sough.
seelusion from tho stage lamps for
twenty years. It was, perhaps, fortu-
nate for this work that no attempt
was made to repeat it, for, though we'll
sung and satisfactorily acted, the top
pling of the pillars of the temple, dis
creetly supported by too visible wires,
at the conclusion made a stronger ap-
peal to the popular sense of the ride
ulous than even Saint-Saens's music
could withstand. 1t is easy to inveigh
against the notion that frivolous frib-
bles and trumpery tsappings should
receive more attention than the fine
music which ought to be recognized d
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 atti-
tude.
II 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
Nose" The story is old and familiar
TO the students of operate history, but
will bear retelling. The plague of dark
ness opens the opera, the passage of
the Red Sea concludes IT, Rossini's
stage mansger had no difficulty with