'Joseph' has outlived 'Titus.'" [Footnote: "Die Moderne Opera," p.

92.] Carl Maria von Weber admired Mehul's opera greatly, and within recent years Felix Weingartner has edited a German edition for which he composed recitatives to take the place of the spoken dialogue of the original book.
There is no story of passion in "Joseph." The love portrayed there is domestic and filial; its objects are the hero's father, brothers, and country--"Champs eternels, Hebron, douce vallee." It was not until our own day that an author with a perverted sense which had already found gratification in the stench of mental, moral, and physical decay exhaled by "Salome" and "Elektra" nosed the piquant, pungent odor of the episode of Potiphar's wife and blew it into the theatre.

Joseph's temptress did not tempt even the prurient taste which gave us the Parisian operatic versions of the stories of Phryne, Thais, and Messalina.

Richard Strauss's "Josephslegende" stands alone in musical literature.

There is, indeed, only one reference in the records of oratorio or opera to the woman whose grovelling carnality is made the foil of Joseph's virtue in the story as told in the Book.