performed in the palace of the Bishop of Groswardein. Of late years
there have been a number of theatrical representations of
Mendelssohn's "Elijah." I have witnessed as well as heard a
performance of "Acis and Galatea" and been entertained with the
spectacle of Polyphemus crushing the head of presumptuous Acis with
a stave like another Fafner while singing "Fly, thou massy ruin,
fly" to the bludgeon which was playing understudy for the fatal
rock.

This diverting incident brings me to a consideration of one of the
difficulties which stand in the way of effective stage pictures
combined with action in the case of some of the most admired of the
subjects for oratorios or sacred opera. It was not the Lord
Chamberlain who stood in the way of Saint-Saens's "Samson et
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 beautiful and inspiriting music.
"Samson et Dalila" was well known in its concert form when the
management of the Metropolitan Opera House first attempted to
introduce it as an opera. It had a single performance in the season
of 1894-1895 and then sought seclusion from the stage lamps for
twenty years. It was, perhaps, fortunate for the work that no
attempt was made to repeat it, for, though well sung and
satisfactorily acted, the toppling of the pillars of the temple,
discreetly supported by too visible wires, at the conclusion made a
stronger appeal to the popular sense of the ridiculous than even
Saint-Saens's music could withstand. It is easy to inveigh against
the notion frivolous fribbles and trumpery trappings receive more