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 "Jephtha's
Tochter" (Munich, 1813), Generali, "Il voto di Jefte" (1827),
Sanpieri, "La Figlia di Jefte" (1872). Luis Cepeda produced a
Spanish opera in Madrid in 1845, and a French opera, in five acts
and a prologue, by Monteclaire, was prohibited, after one
performance, by Cardinal de Noailles in 1832.

Judith, the widow of Manasseh, who delivered her native city of
Bethulia from the Assyrian Holofernes, lulling him to sleep with
her charms and then striking off his drunken head with a falchion,
though an Apocryphal personage, is the most popular of Israelitish
heroines. The record shows the operas "Judith und Holofernes" by
Leopold Kotzeluch (1799), "Giuditta" by S. Levi (1844), Achille
Peri (1860), Righi (1871), and Sarri (1875). Naumann wrote a
"Judith" in 1858, Doppler another in 1870, and Alexander Seroff a
Russian opera under the same title in 1863. Martin Roder, who used
to live in Boston, composed a "Judith," but it was never performed,
while George W. Chadwick's "Judith," half cantata, half opera,
which might easily be fitted for the stage, has had to rest content
with a concert performance at a Worcester (Mass.) festival.

The memory of Esther, the queen of Ahasuerus, who saved her people