The Standard Operaglass Part 48

But the culminating point is reached in the last Act, where we find pa.s.sages of extreme beauty.

The scene is laid on the island of Thule (otherwise Germany, perhaps Ruegen), at the time after the destruction of Carthage.

In the first Act Hiram, a Carthaginian priest emerges from a cave, where he has found a refuge. He has brought Carthage's famous idol Moloch to Thule, with the intention of subjecting the inhabitants to its power, in which he himself no more believes since the downfall of his native city.

The inhabitants of Thule do not as yet worship any particular G.o.d, and Hiram hopes to gain enough ascendancy over them, to use them as a means of revenge against Carthage's great enemy Rome.

When the people of Thule catch sight of the fearful idol, they are frightened, and Hiram intensifies their terror by taking advantage of natural causes. A terrific thunderstorm comes on and the lightning striking the hollow bra.s.s figure, sets light to the wood inside and makes the figure become red hot.

The King's son Teut is one of Hiram's first converts. Moloch, he says, has appeared to him in his dreams, and in spite of the remonstrances of Wolf, his father's friend, in spite of Theoda's and his mother's tears, he worships at Moloch's feet together with the majority of his followers.

Velleda, his mother, a somewhat mystic personage, who foresees every misfortune, {492} prophetically sees her son in the fearful monster's jaws; she veils herself shuddering and withdraws into the woods.

Theoda, who loves Teut hopelessly tries all her simple wiles and allurements on him in vain. When Hiram sacrifices a pair of doves and a ram to the idol, the people all join in his exulting cry of "Moloch is King, he is Lord over all", with which grand and impressive chorus the first Act closes.

The second Act takes place near the sacred yew of the Thuleans. Wolf meets Theoda, and tells her, that Teut is alienating the people with the new religion, and that he must be slain. Theoda opposes him, but he turns from her, and goes to summon the old King to p.r.o.nounce judgment.

Meanwhile Hiram approaches the yew, accompanied by the labourers, who are returning from their work. He has taught them to plough the ground, to sow, to till the soil, and now he deems it time to fell the old tree, which they have hitherto held sacred, and under the branches of which the King is wont to p.r.o.nounce judgment.

Hiram is about to lay the axe to its roots, when the King appears.

Seeing his son bearing a foreign sword, he bids him lay it down at his feet. But Teut declares, that he has received the sword for the protection of Moloch, and audaciously summons his father to dedicate his own ancestral weapon to the new G.o.d.

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Hiram joins him in this demand, and rouses the anger of the King, who would have stabbed the priest but for Teut, who throws himself between the two. Then the outraged monarch turns his sword against his son, whose sense of duty however hinders him from attacking his father, before whom he bends his knee. Yet he only meets with scorn and sneers, and stung by these he seizes his sword. Theoda now intervenes, and Teut throws down his weapon. The King does likewise, and both begin to wrestle. Teut overcomes his father, who, overpowered either by the shock or by shame, becomes unconscious. When Teut perceives what he has done, he is struck with sorrow, but seizing the royal sword he hands it to Hiram, to be taken to Moloch.

When the King comes to his senses, he is so humiliated by his defeat, that he begs his son to kill him. Teut refuses to do so, and the King, cursing his son, turns away, to bury his grief in the wilderness.

Theoda follows him into exile, while Teut joins in the solemn procession to Moloch's temple.

Hiram is triumphant; but suddenly cries of woe are heard. Teut's mother, in despair at her son's apostasy, has precipitated herself from the rocks into the sea, and filled her son's heart with bitter sorrow and pangs of remorse.

Hiram however succeeds once more in recalling him to his allegiance to Moloch by telling him sternly, that all human feelings must be sacrificed to the G.o.d.

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When the people return, he orders them to cut down the sacred yew, the timber of which is to be used for building the first ships known in Thule, and that are destined for the war against the Romans.--

The third Act takes place some months later. A bountiful harvest has been gathered in. With a charming chorus and dance the reapers celebrate their first harvest festival.

Hiram's power has grown immensely; he has fostered the people's superst.i.tious dread by forbidding them to approach the temple of Moloch at night, as death would be the inevitable fate of any mortal, wo should dare to be present at Hiram's nightly converse with the G.o.d.

Hiram hails the reapers and after having sacrificed corn and bread to the idol, he describes to his breathless hearers all the wonders of Italy. They decide to sail on the following morning,--the ships lying ready at anchor,--to conquer the greatest city of the world.

After they have left Wolf appears with some warriors. Their time of revenge is near; Wolf delivers the King's shoulder belt to one of the soldiers and orders him to rouse the country with the cry "Thule is in danger", and to summon all the King's loyal subjects against Hiram and Teut the apostate.

Night sets in and the priests of Moloch march forth from the temple, warning everybody away from its door.--

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Teut keeping guard sits before it in deep thought. Suddenly he hears a well known voice. A roe appears and springs into the grove of the temple followed by Theoda, who with her spear leaps lightly over the wall.

For a moment Teut stands spell bound, but remembering the awful warning he darts after her.

When Theoda emerges from the grove alone, she suddenly recognizes the fatal place. Seeing Teut she implores him to save her from death. In his first mad impulse he is about to stab both himself and her, but his love restrains him and in their mutual embrace they forget death and fear. When they awake from their trance and find themselves still alive and unharmed, Teut in a flash realizes Hiram's falseness and the hollowness of his religion.

He awakens Hiram, the ever sleepless, who, distraught at the prospect of losing all he has schemed and worked for hurls himself from the cliffs into the sea.

In the mean time Wolf and his companions have set fire to the ships.

The priests come out in the dawning morning and are horror struck to hear, that Hiram is dead. The priests' chant to Moloch is drowned by the wild cry of the people.

All now turn against Teut, and Wolf, unaware of his sudden conversion, stabs him in the side.

Thus Theoda finds her lover. She comes, adorned with red berries and garlands, bringing the {496} old King, who sees in bitter grief that his son is the victim of the creator of a new world of beauty and fertility, which he sees around him. Theoda bends down to her lover, who dies in her arms, while the King orders to destroy Moloch.

SALOME.

An Opera in one act and Libretto by RICHARD STRAUSS founded on OSCAR WILDE'S drama.

On December 9th, 1905, this opera was performed for the first time in Dresden.

Its success was immense, and can only be compared with that achieved at Bayreuth in 1876 by the first performance of the Nibelungen Ring.

The well-nigh perfect interpretation of this highly emotional opera proved to be the most difficult composition ever before attempted at the Dresden Opera House.

Salome is the emanation of a genius; for the music is as weird and pa.s.sionate as the libretto, and moreover perfectly in keeping with its plot. It would be difficult to do justice to it, for in order to appreciate its complicated grandeur, one must have heard it performed.

It combines sublimity with asceticism and wickedness, in a most marvellous manner.

Oscar Wilde, the unhappy poet, has produced a wonderful piece of literature in his treatment of {497} the brutal facts connected with Salome's dance and Jokanaan's decapitation.

According to the Biblical tale, Salome is simply the tool of her mother Herodias, at whose instigation she demands Jokanaan's head.

In Wilde's drama, as well as in Strauss' opera, Salome is a distinct personality, full of pa.s.sion, whose instincts are in revolt against her vicious surroundings, and whose heart goes out in fiery love to the only man who comes up to her standard of what manhood should be--namely Jokanaan. When he repulses her, the pa.s.sionate girl's love turns to blind and unreasoning hatred.

In the first scene Herod's soldiers are talking of the holy prophet Jokanaan, whose voice is heard from the well where he is kept captive by the Tetrarch of Galilee, Herod. Salome, hearing Jokanaan's strong, deep voice, is seized with a wild longing to behold the prophet, and she therefore declines her step-father's invitation to join in the festival. The soldiers, not daring to disobey Herod, obstinately refuse to grant Salome's request in regard to Jokanaan, so she turns to a young Syrian, Narraboth by name, who is devoted to her, and who, falling a victim to her charms, finally gives orders to lead forth the prophet.

When Jokanaan steps out of his prison, Salome looks spellbound at the stern and powerful face. Not heeding her, the prophet calls for Herod and his spouse, whom he vehemently reproaches for their sins.

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Salome goes up to him, but he turns from he with lofty contempt.

Vainly she uses all her wiles in an attempt to bewitch him; he sternly reproves her, and cursing her as the unfortunate daughter of a vicious mother, he returns to his dungeon.

Meanwhile Narraboth, seeing that his love for Salome is vain, and that she has only eyes for the prophet, stabs himself.