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She affects ignorance of Assad's passion; but when she learns that he is to wed Sulamith love for him springs up in her own breast. Upon the day of the wedding ceremony Assad, carried away by his longing for the Queen, declares her to be his divinity, and is condemned to death for profaning the Temple. Both the Queen and Sulamith appeal to the King for mercy.
While she waits outside the gates of Jerusalem, Assad announces her arrival to the King and Sulamith, the daughter of the high-priest, to whom the courtier is affianced. Observing his disturbed looks, the King, after dismissing his attendants, inquires the cause.
Assad replies that on their journey through the forest he had encountered a nymph bathing whose beauty had so impressed him as to banish even the thoughts of his affianced. The wise Solomon counsels him to marry Sulamith at once. Meanwhile the Queen comes into the King's presence, and as she lifts her veil reveals the unknown fair one.
Sulamith, the daughter of the high priest, is to wed Assad, a Jewish warrior, upon his return from a military expedition, but Assad has fallen in with the Queen of Sheba on her way to Jerusalem, and her charms have proved fatal to his constancy. Sulamith is prepared to forgive him, but his love for the queen is irresistible, and even at the altar he leaves Sulamith for her embraces.
The palm bends before the blast as the simoom sweeps by. The storm at last subsides. The sky grows brighter; and the Queen and her attendants, with their elephants and camels, appear in a mirage journeying eastward as Sulamith and her lover expire in each other's arms. As their duet dies away, the chorus of maidens brings the act to a close with a few strains from the love-song in the first act.
"The Queen of Sheba" was first produced in Vienna, March 10, 1875, and was first heard in this country at New York, Dec. 2, 1885, when the cast was as follows: KING SOLOMON Herr ROBINSON. HIGH-PRIEST Herr FISCHER. SULAMITH Fraülein LEHMANN. ASSAD Herr STRITT. BAAL HANAN Herr ALEXI. QUEEN OF SHEBA Frau KRAMER-WEIDL. ASTAROTH Fraülein BRANDT.
He consents at last to save his life, but banishes him to the desert. The Queen seeks him there, and makes an avowal of her love; but Assad repulses her. As Sulamith comes upon the scene a simoom sweeps across the desert. They perish in each other's arms; while in a mirage the Queen and her attendants are seen journeying to their home.
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