Elijah

About the work

Elijah (Op. 70) is Felix Mendelssohn's oratorio on the prophet Elijah, staged on the house scene by scene.

Mendelssohn wrote it for the Birmingham Festival, where he conducted its first performance, in English, at Birmingham Town Hall on 26 August 1846; he revised it for London the next year. The text, by Julius Schubring in German and translated into English by William Bartholomew, follows the books of Kings.

Elijah foretells a drought on Israel. He raises a widow's son, then challenges the priests of Baal on Mount Carmel: their god does not answer, and fire falls from heaven on Elijah's altar. The rain returns. Hunted by Queen Jezebel, Elijah flees into the wilderness, where an angel feeds him, and on Mount Horeb God passes by, not in the wind, the earthquake or the fire, but in a still, small voice. At the end he is carried up to heaven in a chariot of fire.

Each scene plays Mendelssohn's own notes, transcribed by hand from a public-domain vocal score (Novello, Ewer and Co., London, 1881) and timed by its tempo markings. There is no choir in the sample library, so the sung lines are played on orchestral instruments; every character has a colour and an instrument, and the lights follow the notes. God never appears as a figure, only in what light does: fire that falls, rain that comes, a single faint point at Horeb.

So far one scene is built: No. 13, the priests of Baal calling on their god (Baal, hear and answer), the whole chorus, with Mendelssohn's silences frozen on the house. It is the start of an oratorio season on the house, with Handel's Judas Maccabaeus and Messiah to follow.

The stage

From the street the porch is the back of the scene.

Subjects never begin on Side, a dim themed bed keeps every run lit, and the last frame of each scene sets up the first of the next. God is never a figure: only what light does (fire that falls, rain that comes, a wind, and at Horeb a single faint point).

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