afterward.

In the course of this study I have mentioned nearly all of the Biblical
characters who have been turned into operatic heroes. Nebuchadnezzar
appeared on the stage at Hamburg in an opera of Keiser's in 1704;
Ariosti put him through his bovine strides in Vienna in 1706. He was
put into a ballet by a Portuguese composer and made the butt of a
French opera bouffe writer, J. J. Debillement, in 1871. He recurs to my
mind now in connection with a witty fling at "Nabucco" made by a French
rhymester when Verdi's opera was produced at Paris in 1845. The noisy
brass in the orchestration offended the ears of a critic, and he wrote:

Vraiment l'affiche est dans son tort;
En faux, ou devrait la poursuivre.
Pourquoi nous annoncer Nabuchodonos--or
Quand c'est Nabuchodonos--cuivre?

Judas Maccabaeus is one of the few heroes of ancient Israel who have
survived in opera, Rubinstein's "Makkabaer" still having a hold, though
not a strong one, on the German stage. The libretto is an adaptation by
Mosenthal (author also of Goldmark's "Queen of Sheba") of a drama by
Otto Ludwig. In the drama as well as some of its predecessors some
liberties have been taken with the story as told in Maccabees II,
chapter 7. The tale of the Israelitish champion of freedom and his
brothers Jonathan and Simon, who lost their lives in the struggle
against the tyranny of the kings of Syria, is intensely dramatic. For
stage purposes the dramatists have associated the massacre of a mother
and her seven sons and the martyrdom of the aged Eleazar, who caused
the uprising of the Jews, with the family history of Judas himself. J.
W. Franck produced "Die Maccabaische Mutter" in Hamburg in 1679,
Ariosti composed "La Madre dei Maccabei" in 1704, Ignaz von Seyfried
brought out "Die Makkabaer, oder Salmonaa" in 1818, and Rubinstein his
opera in Berlin on April 17,1875.

The romantic career of Jephtha, a natural son, banished from home,
chief of a band of roving marauders, mighty captain and ninth judge of
Israel, might have fitted out many an opera text, irrespective of the
pathetic story of the sacrifice of his daughter in obedience to a vow,
though this episode springs first to mind when his name is mentioned,
and has been the special subject of the Jephtha operas. An Italian
composer named Pollarolo wrote a "Jefte" for Vienna in 1692; other
operas dealing with the history are Rolle's "Mehala, die Tochter
Jephthas" (1784), Meyerbeer's