Nebuchadnezzar. Duprez, who was ambitious to shine as a composer as
well as a singer (he wrote no less than eight operas and also an
oratorio, "The Last Judgment"), tried his hand on a Samson opera
and succeeded in enlisting the help of Dumas the elder in writing
the libretto. When he was ready to present it at the door of the
Grand Opera the Minister of Fine Arts told him that it was
impracticable, as the stage-setting of the last act alone would
cost more than 100,000 francs, Duprez then followed the example set
with Rossini's "Mose" in London and changed the book to make it
tell a story of the crusades which he called "Zephora".
Nevertheless the original form was restored in German and Italian
translations of the work, and it had concert performances in 1857.
To Joachim Raff was denied even this poor comfort. He wrote a
German "Simson" between 1851 and 1857. The conductor at Darmstadt
to whom it was first submitted rejected it on the ground that it
was too difficult for his singers. Raff then gave it to Liszt, with
whom he was sojourning at Weimar, and who had taken pity on his
"Konig Alfred"; but the tenor singer at the Weimar opera said the
music was too high for the voice. Long afterward Wagner's friend,
Schnorr von Carolsfeld, saw the score in the hands of the composer.
The heroic stature of the hero delighted him, and his praise moved
Raff to revise the opera; but before this had been done Schnorr
died of the cold contracted while creating the role of Wagner's
Tristan at Munich in 1865. Thus mournfully ended the third episode.
As late as 1882 Raff spoke of taking the opera in hand again, but
though he may have done so his death found the work unperformed and
it has not yet seen the light of the stage-lamps.

Saint-Saens's opera has also passed through many vicissitudes, but
has succumbed to none and is probably possessed of more vigorous