ays. God of our refuge!_ remains in
suspense and the orchestra brings it to an end, the first example of a
practice used frequently in modern works.

We do not know how Meyerbeer got his idea of putting the schismatic John
Huss on the stage under the name of John of Leyden. Whether this idea
was original with him or was suggested by Scribe, who made a fantastic
person out of John, we do not know. We only know that the role of the
prophet's mother was originally intended for Madame Stoltz, but she had
left the Opera. Meyerbeer heard Madame Pauline Viardot at Vienna and
found in her his ideal, so he created the redoubtable role of Fides for
her. The part of Jean was given to the tenor Roger, the star of the
Opera-Comique, and he played and sang it well. Levasseur, the Marcel of
_Les Huguenots_ and the Bertram of _Robert_, played the part of
Zacharie.

_Le Prophete_ was enormously successful in spite of the then powerful
censer-bearers of the Italian school. We now see its defects rather than
its merits. Meyerbeer is criticised for not putting into practice
theories he did not know and no account is taken of his fearlessness,
which was great for that period. No one else could have drawn the
cathedral scene with such breadth of stroke and extraordinary
brilliancy. The paraphrase of _Domine salvum fac regem_ reveals great
ingenuity. His method of treating the organ is wonderful, and his idea
of the ritournello _Sur le Jeu de hautbois_ is charming. This precedes
and introduces the children's chorus, and is constructed on a novel
theme which is developed brilliantly by the choruses, the orchestra and
the organ combined. The repetition of the _Domine Salvum_ at the end
of the scene, which bursts forth abruptly in a different key, is full of
color and character.

[Illustration: Meyerbeer, Composer of _Les Huguenots_]

III

The story of _Le Pardon de Ploermel_ is interesting. It was first called
_Dinorah_, a name which Meyerbeer picked up abroad. But Meyerbeer liked
to change the titles of his operas several times in the course of the
rehearsals in order to keep public curiosity at fever heat. He had the
notion of writing an opera-comique in one act, and he asked his favorite
collaborators, Jules Barbier and Michael Carre, for a libretto. They
produced _Dinorah_ in three scenes and with but three characters. The
music was written promptly and was given to Perrin, the famous director,
whose unfortunate influence soon made