the project before the Grand Duke of Weimar, who told him that it
was feasible only in large cities. The advice sent him to Berlin,
where he opened his mind to the Minister of Education, von Muhler.
The official had his doubts; sacred operas might do for Old
Testament stories, but not for New; moreover, such a theatre should
be a private, not a governmental, undertaking. He sought the
opinion of Stanley, Dean of Westminster Abbey, who said that he
could only conceive a realization of the idea in the oldtime
popular manner, upon a rude stage at a country fair.

For a space it looked as if the leaders of the Jewish congregations
in Paris would provide funds for the enterprise so far as it
concerned itself with subjects taken from the Old Dispensation; but
at the last they backed out, fearing to take the initiative in a
matter likely to cause popular clamor. "I even thought of America,"
says Rubinstein, "of the daring transatlantic impresarios, with
their lust of enterprise, who might be inclined to speculate on a
gigantic scale with my idea. I had indeed almost succeeded, but the
lack of artists brought it to pass that the plans, already in a
considerable degree of forwardness, had to be abandoned. I
considered the possibility of forming an association of composers
and performing artists to work together to carry on the enterprise
materially, intellectually, and administratively; but the great
difficulty of enlisting any considerable number of artists for the
furtherance of a new idea in art frightened me back from this
purpose also." In these schemes there are evidences of Rubinstein's
willingness to follow examples set by Handel as well as Wagner. The
former composed "Judas Maccabaeus" and "Alexander Balus" to please
the Jews who had come to his help when he made financial shipwreck
with his opera; the latter created the Richard Wagner Verein to put