Saint Saens has treated this scene with uncommon variety and force, and indeed the whole opera is a masterly piece of writing.  He uses guiding themes with more freedom than in ‘Samson et Dalila,’ but the general outline of ‘Henry VIII.’ is certainly not Wagnerian in type.  The same may be said of ‘Ascanio,’ a work produced in 1890, with only partial success.  ‘Phryne,’ which was given at the Opera Comique in 1893, is on a much less elaborate scale.  It is a musicianly little work, but in form follows the traditions of the older school of opera comique with almost exaggerated fidelity.  ‘Les Barbares’ (1901), a story of the Teutonic invasion of Gaul, did not enhance the composer’s reputation.  The plot is of a well-worn kind.  Marcomir, the leader of the barbarian invaders, is subjugated by the charms of the priestess Floria, who, after the requisite amount of hesitation, falls duly into his arms.  Finally Marcomir is stabbed by Livia, whose husband he had killed in battle.  Saint Saens’s music is admirable from the point of view of workmanship, but it is singularly devoid of anything like inspiration.  ‘Les Barbares’ was received with all the respect due to a work from the pen of the leading musician of modern France, but it would be useless to pretend that it is likely to keep its place in the current repertory.

‘Helene’ (1904) is a more favourable example of Saint Saens’s many-sided talent.  The libretto, which is the work of the composer himself, deals with the flight of Helen and Paris from Sparta, and the greater part of the one act of which the opera consists is devoted to an impassioned duet between the lovers.  The apparitions of Venus and Pallas, the one urging Helen upon her purposed flight, the other dissuading her from it, give variety to the action, but the work as a whole lacks dramatic intensity, though it rises to a climax of some power.  Saint Saens’s music is interesting and musicianly from first to last.  Like Berlioz in his ‘Prise de Troie’ he has plainly gone to Gluck for his inspiration, and in its sobriety and breadth of design no less than in its classic dignity of melody and orchestration, his music often recalls the style of the mighty composer of ‘Alceste.’

Saint Saens’s latest opera, ‘L’Ancetre’ (1906), has not added materially to his reputation.  It is a gloomy and, to tell the truth, somewhat conventional story of a Corsican vendetta.  The instrumental part of the work is treated in masterly fashion, but the opera as a whole met with little favour at its production at Monte Carlo, and it has not been performed elsewhere.

Saint Saens’s theory of opera has been to combine song, declamation, and symphony in equal proportions, and thus, though he has written works which cannot fail to charm, he seems often to have fallen foul of both camps in the world of music.  The Wagnerians object to the set form of his works, and the reactionaries condemn the prominence which he often gives to the declamatory and symphonic portions of his score.  He is by nature a thorough eclectic, and his works possess a deep interest for musicians, but it may be doubted whether, in opera at any rate, a more masterful personality is not necessary to produce work of really permanent value.