rains 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
passionate 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 passion, whose instincts are in revolt against her
vicious surroundings, and whose heart goes out in fiery love to the
only man who comes up