child of the theatrical boards, who inherited traits from
several predecessors, the strongest being those deriving from Aida and
Selika. Like the former, she loves a man whom her father believes to be
the arch enemy of his native land, and, like her, she is the means of
betraying him into the hands of the avenger. Like the heroine of
Meyerbeer's posthumous opera, she has a fatal acquaintance with
tropical botany and uses her knowledge to her own destruction. Her
scientific attainments are on about the same plane as her amiability,
her abnormal sense of filial duty, and her musical accomplishments. She
loves a man whom her father wishes her to lure to his death by her
singing, and she sings entrancingly enough to bring about the meeting
between her lover's back and her father's knife. That she does not
warble herself into the position of "particeps criminis" in a murder
she owes only to the bungling of the old man. Having done this,
however, she turns physician and nurse and brings the wounded man back
to health, thus sacrificing her love to the duty which her lover thinks
he owes to the invaders of her country and oppressors of her people.
After this she makes the fatal application of her botanical knowledge.
Such things come about when one goes to India for an operatic heroine.

The feature of the libretto which Delibes has used to the best purpose
is its local color. His music is saturated with the languorous spirit
of the East. Half a dozen of the melodies are lovely inventions, of
marked originality in both matter and treatment, and the first half
hour of the opera is apt to take one's fancy completely captive. The
drawback lies in the oppressive weariness which succeeds the first
trance, and is brought on by the monotonous character of the music.
After an hour of "Lakme" one yearns for a few crashing chords of C
major as a person enduring suffocation longs for a gush of fresh air.
The music first grows monotonous, then wearies. Delibes's lyrical
moments show the most numerous indications of beauty; dramatic life and
energy are absent from the score. In the second act he moves his
listeners only once--with the attempted repetition of the bell song
after Lakme has recognized her lover. The odor of the poppy invites to
drowsy enjoyment in the beginning, and the first act is far and away
the most gratifying in the opera, musically as well as scenically. It
would be so if it contained only Lakme's song "Pourquoi dans le