he Baptist finds
in his wanderings and befriends. She clings to him when he becomes a
political as well as a religious power among the Jews, though he
preaches unctuously to her touching the vanity of earthly love.
Herodias demands his death of her husband for that he had publicly
insulted her, but Herod schemes to use his influence over the Jews to
further his plan to become a real monarch instead of a Roman Tetrarch.
But when the pro-consul Vitellius wins the support of the people and
Herod learns that the maiden who has spurned him is in love with the
prophet, he decrees his decapitation. Salome, baffled in her effort to
save her lover, attempts to kill Herodias; but the wicked woman
discloses herself as the maiden's mother and Salome turns the dagger
against her own breast.

This is all of the story one needs to know. It is richly garnished with
incident, made gorgeous with pageantry, and clothed with much charming
music. Melodies which may be echoes of synagogal hymns of great
antiquity resound in the walls of the temple at Jerusalem, in which
respect the opera recalls Goldmark's "Queen of Sheba." Curved Roman
trumpets mix their loud clangors with the instruments of the modern
brass band and compel us to think of "Aida." There are dances of
Egyptians, Babylonians, and Phoenicians, and if the movements of the
women make us deplore the decay of the choreographic art, the music
warms us almost as much as the Spanish measures in "Le Cid." Eyes and
ears are deluged with Oriental color until at the last there comes a
longing for the graciously insinuating sentimentalities of which the
earlier Massenet was a master. Two of the opera's airs had long been
familiar to the public from performance in the concert-room--Salome's
"Il est doux" and Herod's "Vision fugitive"--and they stand out as the
brightest jewels in the opera's musical crown; but there is much else
which woos the ear delightfully, for Massenet was ever a gracious if
not a profound melodist and a master of construction and theatrical
orchestration. When he strives for massive effects, however, he
sometimes becomes futile, banal where he would be imposing; but he
commands a charm which is insinuating in its moments of intimacy.

[Footnote: "Herodiade" had its first performance in New York (it had
previously been given in New Orleans by the French Opera Company) on
November 8, 1909. The cast was as follows: Salome--Lina Cavalieri;
Herodias--Gerville-Reache; Joh