false Turks drink the young
couple's health at the cost of the two defeated suitors.

DJAMILEH.

A romantic Opera in one act by GEORGES BIZET.

Text by LOUIS GALLET.

German Translation by LUDWIG HARTMANN.

Djamileh was composed before Carmen, and was given in Paris in 1872.
But after the years of war and bloodshed, its sweetness was out of
place, and so it was forgotten, until it was revived again in Germany.
Though the text is meagre, the opera had great success on the stages of
Berlin, Leipsic, Vienna and Dresden, and so its Publisher, Paul
Choudens in Paris was right, when he remarked years ago to a German
critic: "l'Allemagne un jour comprendra les beautes de Djamileh."

There is no more exquisite music, than the romance of the boatsmen on
the Nile, sung with closed lips at the opening of the first scene, and
the ravishing dance of the Almee, an invention of Arabic origine is so
original, so wild and melancholy and yet so sweet, that it enchants
every musical ear. The plot is very simple and meagre.

{355}

Harun, a rich young Turk has enjoyed life to its very dregs. He gives
dinners, plays at dice, he keeps women, but his heart remains cold and
empty, he disbelieves in love, and only cares for absolute freedom in
all his actions, but withal his life seems shallow and devoid of
interest. Every month he engages a new female slave, with whom he
idles away his days, but at the end of this time she is discarded. His
antipathy for love partly arises from the knowledge of his father's
unhappy married life.

At the opening of the scene Harun lies on a couch smoking, too lazy to
move a finger and lulled into dreams by the boatsmen's songs. At last
he rouses himself from his lethargy, and tells his secretary and former
tutor Splendiano of his visions. The latter is looking over his
master's accounts, and now tells him dryly, that, if he continues his
style of living, he will be ruined before the end of the year. This
scarcely moves the young man, to whom a year seems a long way off; he
also takes it cooly, when Splendiano remarks, that the latest
favorite's month is up, and that Djamileh is to leave towards evening,
to make room to another beauty. Harun carelessly charges his servant
to look out for another slave. When Splendiano sees, that Djamileh's
unusual beauty has failed to impress his master, he owns to a tender
feeling for her himself, and asks for permission to win the girl.
Harun read