vision. This is the reason why Nelusko succumbs so quickly to the
deadly perfume of the poisonous flowers, while Selika resists so long.
The riturnello of Selika's aria, which should be performed with lowered
curtain as the queen gazes over the sea and at the departing vessel far
away on the horizon, became a vehicle for encores--the last thing that
was ever in Meyerbeer's mind. But the worst was the liberty Fetis took
in retouching the orchestration. As a compliment to Adolph Sax he
substituted a saxaphone for the bass clarinet which the author
indicated. This resulted in the suppression of that part of the aria
beginning _O Paradis sorti de l'onde_ as the saxophone did not produce a
good effect. Fetis also allowed Perrin to make over a bass solo into a
chorus, the Bishop's Chorus. The great vocal range in this is poorly
adapted for a chorus. Some barbarous modulations are certainly
apocryphal....

We are unable to imagine what _L'Africanne_ would have been if Scribe
had lived and the authors had put it into shape. The work we have is
illogical and incomplete. The words are simply monstrous and Scribe
certainly would not have kept them. This is the case in the passage in
the great duet:

O ma Selika, vous regnez sur mon ame!
--Ah! ne dis pas ces mots brulante!
Ils m'egarent moi-meme....

The music stitched to this impossible piece, however, had its
admirers--even fanatical admirers--so great was the prestige of the
author's name at the time of its appearance. We must not forget that
there are, indeed, some beautiful pages in this chaos. The religious
ceremony in the fourth act and the Brahmin recitative accompanied by the
_pizzicati_ of the bass may be mentioned as an indication of this. The
latter passage is not in favor, however; they play it down without
conviction and so deprive it of all its strength and majesty.

* * * * *

I said, at the beginning of this study, that we were ungrateful to
Meyerbeer, and this ingratitude is double on the part of France, for he
loved her. He only had to say the word to have any theatre in Europe
opened to him, yet he preferred to them all the Opera at Paris and even
the Opera-Comique where the choruses and orchestra left much to be
desired. When he did work for Paris after he had given _Margherita
d'Anjou_ and _Le Crociato_ in Italy, he was forced to accommodate
himself to French taste just as Rossini and Donizetti were. The latter