nfant prodigue" were current; but Rameau had powerful enemies, and
the opera was prohibited on the eve of the day on which it was to have
been performed. The composer had to stomach his mortification as best
he could; he put some of his Hebrew music into the service of his
Persian "Zoroastre". The other French Samson to whom I have re ferred
had also to undergo a sea-change like unto Rameau's, Rossini's Moses,
and Verdi's Nebuchadnezzar. Duprez, who was ambitious to shine as a
composer as well as a singer (he wrote no less than eight operas and
also an oratorio, "The Last Judgment"), tried his hand on a Samson
opera and succeeded in enlisting the help of Dumas the elder in writing
the libretto. When he was ready to present it at the door of the Grand
Opera the Minister of Fine Arts told him that it was impracticable, as
the stage-setting of the last act alone would cost more than 100,000
francs, Duprez then followed the example set with Rossini's "Mose" in
London and changed the book to make it tell a story of the crusades
which he called "Zephora". Nevertheless the original form was restored
in German and Italian translations of the work, and it had concert
performances in 1857. To Joachim Raff was denied even this poor
comfort. He wrote a German "Simson" between 1851 and 1857. The
conductor at Darmstadt to whom it was first submitted rejected it on
the ground that it was too difficult for his singers. Raff then gave it
to Liszt, with whom he was sojourning at Weimar, and who had taken pity
on his "Konig Alfred"; but the tenor singer at the Weimar opera said
the music was too high for the voice. Long afterward Wagner's friend,
Schnorr von Carolsfeld, saw the score in the hands of the composer. The
heroic stature of the hero delighted him, and his praise moved Raff to
revise the opera; but before this had been done Schnorr died of the
cold contracted while creating the role of Wagner's Tristan at Munich
in 1865. Thus mournfully ended the third episode. As late as 1882 Raff
spoke of taking the opera in hand again, but though he may have done so
his death found the work unperformed and it has not yet seen the light
of the stage-lamps.

Saint-Saens's opera has also passed through many vicissitudes, but has
succumbed to none and is probably possessed of more vigorous life now
than it ever had. It is the recognized operatic masterpiece of the most
resourceful and fecund French musician since Berlioz. Saint-Saens began
the co