n Pedro, who has stolen a march on Vasco, is on his way to the African
island, taking with him Inez and Selika. The steering of the vessel is
entrusted to Nelusko. Vasco da Gama, who has fitted out a vessel at his
own expense, overtakes Don Pedro in mid-ocean, and generously warns his
rival of the treachery of Nelusko, who is steering the vessel upon the
rocks of his native shore. Don Pedro's only reply is to order Vasco to
be tied to the mast and shot, but before the sentence can be carried out
the vessel strikes upon the rocks, and the aborigines swarm over the
sides. Selika, once more a queen, saves the lives of Vasco and Inez from
the angry natives. In the next act the nuptials of Selika and Vasco are
on the point of being celebrated with great pomp, when the hero, who has
throughout the opera wavered between the two women who love him, finally
makes up his mind in favour of Inez. Selika thereupon magnanimously
despatches them home in Vasco's ship, and poisons herself with the
fragrance of the deadly manchineel tree. The characters of
'L'Africaine,' with the possible exception of Selika and Nelusko, are
the merest shadows, but the music, though less popular as a rule than
that of 'Les Huguenots,' or even 'Le Prophete,' is undoubtedly
Meyerbeer's finest effort. In his old age Meyerbeer seems to have looked
back to the days of his Italian period, and thus, though occasionally
conventional in form, the melodies of 'L'Africaine' have a dignity and
serenity which are rarely present in the scores of his French period.
There is, too, a laudable absence of that ceaseless striving after
effect which mars so much of Meyerbeer's best work.

Besides the great works already discussed, Meyerbeer wrote two works for
the Opera Comique, 'L'Etoile du Nord' and 'Le Pardon de Ploermel.'
Meyerbeer was far too clever a man to undertake anything he could not
carry through successfully, and in these operas he caught the trick of
French opera comique very happily.

'L'Etoile du Nord' deals with the fortunes of Peter the Great, who, when
the opera opens, is working as a shipwright at a dockyard in Finland. He
wins the heart of Catherine, a Cossack maiden, who has taken up her
quarters there as a kind of vivandiere. Catherine is a girl of
remarkable spirit, and after repulsing an incursion of Calmuck Tartars
single-handed, goes off to the wars in the disguise of a recruit, in
order to enable her brother to stay at home and marry Prascovia, th