The title of the opera indicates that the Biblical story of the
visit of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon had been drawn on for the
plot. This is true, but only in a slight degree. Sheba's Queen
comes to Solomon in the opera, but that is the end of the draft on
the Scriptural legend so far as she is concerned. Sulamith, who
figures in the drama, owes her name to the Canticles, from which it
was borrowed by the librettist, but no element of her character nor
any of the incidents in which she is involved. The "Song of Songs,
which is Solomon's" contributes a few lines of poetry to the book,
and a ritualistic service which is celebrated in the temple finds
its original text in the opening verses of Psalms lxvii and cxvii,
but with this I have enumerated all that the opera owes to the
Bible. It is not a Biblical opera, in the degree that Mehul's
"Joseph," Rossini's "Moses," or Rubinstein's "Maccabees" is
Biblical, to say nothing of Saint-Saens's "Samson et Dalila."
Solomon's magnificent reign and marvellous wisdom, which contribute
a few factors to the sum of the production, belong to profane as
well as to sacred history and it will be found most agreeable to
deeply rooted preconceptions to think of some other than the
Scriptural Solomon as the prototype of the Solomon of Mosenthal and
Goldmark, who, at the best, is a sorry sort of sentimentalist. The
local color has been borrowed from the old story; the dramatic
motive comes plainly from Wagner's "Tannhauser."

Assad, a favorite courtier, is sent by Solomon to extend greetings
and a welcome to the Queen of Sheba, who is on the way to visit the
king, whose fame for wealth and wisdom has reached her ears in far
Arabia. Assad is the type (though a milk-and-watery one, it must
be confessed) of manhood struggling between the things that are of