The device of introducing voices before the disclosure of visible action in an opera is not new, and in this case is both uncalled for and ineffective.

Gounod made a somewhat similar effort in his "Romeo et Juliette," where a costumed group of singers presents a prologue, vaguely visible through a gauze curtain.

Meyerbeer tried the expedient in "Le Pardon de Ploermel," and the siciliano in Mascagni's "Cavalleria Rusticana" and the prologue in Leoncavallo's "Pagliacci" are other cases in point.

Of these only the last can be said to achieve its purpose in arresting the early attention of the audience.

When the curtain opens we see a public place in Gaza in front of the temple of Dagon.