which heard it for the first time. Laughter was just beginning in
the pit when the public was surprised to note that Moses was about
to sing. The people stopped laughing and prepared to listen. They
were awed by the beauty of the minor strain which was echoed by
Aaron and then by the chorus of Israelites. The host marched across
the mimic sea and fell on its knees, and the music burst forth
again, but now in the major mode. And now the audience joined in
the jubilation. The people in the boxes, says Carpani, stood up;
they leaned over the railings; applauded; they shouted: "Bello!
bello! O che bello!" Carpani adds: "I am almost in tears when I
think of this prayer." An impressionable folk, those Italians of
less than a century ago. "Among other things that can be said in
praise of our hero," remarked a physician to Carpani, amidst the
enthusiasm caused by the revamped opera, "do not forget that he is
an assassin. I can cite to you more than forty attacks of nervous
fever or violent convulsions on the part of young women, fond to
excess of music, which have no other origin than the prayer of the
Hebrews in the third act with its superb change of key!"

Thus music saved the scene in Naples. When the opera was rewritten
for London and made to tell a story about Peter the Hermit, the
corresponding scene had to be elided after the first performance.
Ebers tells the story: "A body of troops was supposed to pass over
a bridge which, breaking, was to precipitate them into the water.
The troops being made of basketwork and pulled over the bridge by
ropes, unfortunately became refractory on their passage, and very
sensibly refused, when the bridge was about to give way, to proceed
any further; consequently when the downfall of the arches took
place the basket men remained very quietly on that part of the
bridge which was left standing, and instead of being consigned to