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.