the Bayreuth enterprise on its feet.

Of the six sacred operas composed by Rubinstein three may be said
to be practicable for stage representation. They are "Die
Makkabaer," "Sulamith" (based on Solomon's Song of Songs) and
"Christus." The first has had many performances in Germany; the
second had a few performances in Hamburg in 1883; the last, first
performed as an oratorio in Berlin in 1885, was staged in Bremen in
1895. It has had, I believe, about fourteen representations in all.
As for the other three works, "Der Thurmbau zu Babel" (first
performance in Konigsberg in 1870), "Das verlorene Paradies"
(Dusseldorf, 1875), and "Moses" (still awaiting theatrical
representation, I believe), it may be said of them that they are
hybrid creations which combine the oratorio and opera styles by
utilizing the powers of the oldtime oratorio chorus and the modern
orchestra, with the descriptive capacity of both raised to the
highest power, to illustrate an action which is beyond the
capabilities of the ordinary stage machinery. In the character of
the forms employed in the works there is no startling innovation;
we meet the same alternation of chorus, recitative, aria, and
ensemble that we have known since the oratorio style was perfected.
A change, howeer, has come over the spirit of the expression and
the forms have all relaxed some of their rigidity. In the oratorios
of Handel and Haydn there are instances not a few of musical
delineation in the instrumental as well as the vocal parts; but
nothing in them can be thought of, so far at least as the ambition
of the design extends, as a companion piece to the scene in the
opera which pictures the destruction of the tower of Babel. This is
as far beyond the horizon of the fancy of the old masters as it is
beyond the instrumental forces which they controlled.