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Her father, wishing to marry her to Don Pedro, the President of the Council, tries to persuade her that Vasco has perished by shipwreck; but the refutation of the story comes in the sudden appearance of Vasco himself, who is summoned before the Council and narrates to them his discovery of a strange land, producing two of the natives, Selika and Nelusko, as confirmations of his announcement.
Meyerbeer was discouraged and he threw his unfinished manuscript into a drawer where it stayed until Marie Sass had so developed her voice and talent that he made up his mind to entrust the rôle of Sélika to her. He wanted Faure for the rôle of Nelusko and he was already at the Opéra, so he had the management engage Naudin, the Italian tenor, as well.
In the last act, as the vessel sails away bearing Vasco and Inez back to Portugal, Selika throws herself down under the poisonous manchineel-tree and kills herself with its fatal flowers; expiring in the arms of Nelusko, who shares the same fate.
Some barbarous modulations are certainly apocryphal.... We are unable to imagine what L'Africanne would have been if Scribe had lived and the authors had put it into shape. The work we have is illogical and incomplete. The words are simply monstrous and Scribe certainly would not have kept them. This is the case in the passage in the great duet: O ma Sélika, vous régnez sur mon âme!
Don Pedro incites the inquisitors to deny the truth of the story, at which Vasco breaks out in such a furious rage against them that he is arrested and thrown into a dungeon. The second act opens in the prison, where Selika is watching the slumbering Vasco. As he wakens she declares her love for him, and at the same time saves him from the dagger of the jealous Nelusko.
The characters of 'L'Africaine, with the possible exception of Selika and Nelusko, are the merest shadows, but the music, though less popular as a rule than that of 'Les Huguenots, or even 'Le Prophète, is undoubtedly Meyerbeer's finest effort.
Don Pedro's only reply is to order Vasco to be tied to the mast and shot, but before the sentence can be carried out the vessel strikes upon the rocks, and the aborigines swarm over the sides. Selika, once more a queen, saves the lives of Vasco and Inez from the angry natives.
In the next act, Don Pedro, who has stolen a march on Vasco, is on his way to the African island, taking with him Inez and Selika. The steering of the vessel is entrusted to Nelusko.
"Selika is cold beside you," said Lissac as he disappeared through the open doorway, "I will bring you your minister in ten minutes." Sabine waited nervously. The curtain had just fallen on the third act. The manager's box was empty. Guy would doubtless be obliged to rejoin Vaudrey, and neither the minister nor his friend would be seen again. Just then some one knocked at the door of the box.
Marie Selika, a cultured vocalist of the first rank, had delighted audiences in both America and Europe, and in 1887 had appeared Flora Batson, a ballad singer whose work at its best was of the sort that sends an audience into the wildest enthusiasm. In 1894, moreover, Harry T. Burleigh, competing against sixty candidates, became baritone soloist at St.
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