The mood remains gloomy: “I am missing a hero,” as it says at the beginning of “Don Juan”, R. jokes, though without cheer. He writes to Niemann, lamenting his plight over Siegfried. Will it help? … In the evening, he takes up “The Jewess”, finding joy in the grand style of this work. A very different artistic use of Jewish melodies than what is found in the current Jewish operas (“The Maccabees”,[1] “The Queen of Sheba” [2]).
[1] “Die Makkabäer”, an opera by Anton Rubenstein, first performed in Berlin in 1875; libretto by Salomon Hermann Mosenthal.
Revised English translation by Jo Cousins.