e character of John of Leyden have been almost
entirely neglected. Once only, in the famous cantique 'Roi du Ciel,' did
the composer catch an echo of the prophetic rapture which animated the
youthful enthusiast. Meyerbeer's besetting sin, his constant search for
the merely effective, is even more pronounced in 'Le Prophete' than in
'Les Huguenots.' The coronation scene has nothing of the large
simplicity necessary for the proper manipulation of a mass of sound. The
canvas is crowded with insignificant and confusing detail, and the
general effect is finicking and invertebrate rather than solid and
dignified.

Meyerbeer was constantly at work upon his last opera, 'L'Africaine,'
from 1838 until 1864, and his death found him still engaged in
retouching the score. It was produced in 1865. With a musician of
Meyerbeer's known eclecticism, it might be supposed that a work of which
the composition extended over so long a period would exhibit the
strangest conglomeration of styles and influences. Curiously enough,
'L'Africaine' is the most consistent of Meyerbeer's works. This is
probably due to the fact that in it the personal element is throughout
outweighed by the picturesque, and the exotic fascination of the story
goes far to cover its defects.

Vasco da Gama, the famous discoverer, is the betrothed lover of a maiden
named Inez, the daughter of Don Diego, a Portuguese grandee. When the
opera opens he is still at sea, and has not been heard of for years. Don
Pedro, the President of the Council, takes advantage of his absence to
press his own suit for the hand of Inez, and obtains the King's sanction
to his marriage on the ground that Vasco must have been lost at sea. At
this moment the long-lost hero returns, accompanied by two swarthy
slaves, Selika and Nelusko, whom he has brought home from a distant isle
in the Indian Ocean. He recounts the wonders of the place, and entreats
the government to send out a pioneer expedition to win an empire across
the sea. His suggestions are rejected, and he himself, through the
machinations of Don Pedro, is cast into prison. There he is tended by
Selika, who loves her gentle captor passionately, and has need of all
her regal authority--for in the distant island she was a queen--to
prevent the jealous Nelusko from slaying him in his sleep. Inez now
comes to the prison to announce to Vasco that she has purchased his
liberty at the price of giving her hand to Don Pedro. In the next act,
Do