Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Queen of Sheba: Opera in Four Acts, From a d104 by Mosenthal
Kano awaits thecoming of the Queen of Sheba. He has dispatched his favorite courtier, Assad, to escort the royal guest to Jerusalem. Assad, the betrothed of Sulamith, the High Priest's daughter, was to celebrate his nuptials during the Queen' s sojourn in the Jewish capital; but at the foot of the Lebanon he has surprised the beautiful queen in a bath, and, in?amed by her charms, has become deeply enam ored with her, as she with him. On his return to Jerusalem he 18 met by his betrothed and her father, but conscious of his guilty passion he shrinks from their welcomes. Solomon who half divines the truth, questions him closely, whereupon Assad confesses the truth so far as it is known to himself, for he is not yet aware of the fact that it was the Queen herself whom he had espied in the bath. Solomon exhorts himto remain faithful to Sulamith; Assad promises obedience, but finds his resolution shaken when, at the Queen's reception of the royal court, she raises her veil and gazes at him. Dining the night the Queen has a secret meeting with Assad in the royal gardens and urges him to abandon Sulamith and to return with her (the Queen) to Arabia. The day set for his nuptials with Sulamith arrives Solomon himself appears in the temple to witness the celebration Assad seems inclined to return to his faith, but on seeing the Queen enter the sacred edifice, his unhahowed passxon revives, and be publicly spurns his devoted bride. Solomon, suspecting the truth, conjures the Queen to solve this mystery, but she declares that she does not know Assad and has never seen him. The latter is condemned to death by the priests, but the execution of judgment is stayed by the Ling. The Queen pleads for him, but Solomon remains deaf to her prayers, where upon the Queen departs from Jerusalem. Sulamith declares her intention to retire from the world and to devote her remaining days to God. Assad, whose life has been spared, but who is condemned by the King to perpetual banishment, strays repent nully in the Syrian desert. Once more he meets the false Queen who exhausts her seductive eloquence, but m vain. Assad remains deaf to her pleadings and is resolved to atone his guilt by sincere repentance. He expires in the arms of Sulamith who, accompanied by her maidens, is traversing the desert on her way to her cloistral seclusion and has found her faithless lover fainting and dying.
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