Elijah/Elias/Eliyahu Trivia Quiz

Answer: The overture follows a brief introduction by the bass solo.

It was slightly unusual at the time for big choral and operatic works to have the overture follow an introduction by the main soloist of the piece. My guess is that Mendelssohn wanted to emphasize the role of his star character by quoting the very first words we hear from Elijah in the Bible (in 1 Kings 17:1): "So long as the Lord, God of Israel, lives, there shall not be dew or rain in the land, but by my word."

Answer: One of the basses

All the solo voices in the oratorio are accounted for except the second bass. Two sopranos and two altos sing the roles of angels, Jezebel, the boy and the widow whose child Elijah resurrects. The tenors are Ahab and the prophet Obadiah. Elijah is a bass.

The octet, however, calls for two basses. The words are from the 91st Psalm: "For he shall command his angels over you, to safeguard you on all your paths. They shall carry you on their hands, lest your foot be struck by a stone."

Answer: No

The biblical Elijah does however say (1 Kings 17:21): "Lord, my God, let this child's spirit return to him." And Mendelssohn has his soloist repeat the line three times, each time answered by the widow about the boy's death.

Answer: A chorale and a renewed plea to send down the fire

The prayer, No. 14 in the oratorio, is in fact the same prayer found in the "Bible", for a change (except it is translated into German or English). But while the Bible has Elijah's prayer answered quickly and directly, Mendelssohn figured it would be appropriate at that point to insert a Lutheran chorale, "Wirf dein Anliegen auf den Herrn" ("Cast your burden upon the Lord").

After the chorale, he obviously needed to return to the subject at hand, the fire. Mendelssohn's Elijah prays once again for the fire, and then the chorus describes how the fire falls from above.

Answer: Psalm 112

Psalm 112 begins with the following verse: "Halleluyah, blessed be the man who fears the Lord and goes in his way." Mendelssohn does set this verse to music in the first act as the very moving No. 9, sung by the chorus who answer Elijah and the widow.

Answer: Isaiah

The verse is from chapter 51 of Isaiah. It is read in synagogues about a month before Rosh Hashannah, the Jewish New Year. In fact, the melody to which these words are chanted in Hebrew is remarkably similar to Mendelssohn's rendering in German.

Answer: The narrator in the Bible describes Ahab, and Jezebel threatens Elijah by messenger.

Mendelssohn has Elijah quote what the Bible has the narrator saying, starting at 1 Kings 16:30: "And Ahab, son of Omri, did what was wicked in the eyes of the Lord, more than any who had come before him. It was only a start for him to lead Israel in the sins of Jeroboam... and he worshiped Baal..." After the episode at Mt. Carmel, a messenger is sent to Jezebel to tell her about the slaying of the prophets of Baal, and she sends him back to Elijah with a message: "May the gods do so much to me, and add on that much, if not by this time tomorrow I should not have placed you as one of them..."

Answer: No

The original has Elijah going to B'er Sheva, where he asks God to take his life. Then an angel sends him to Mt. Sinai, to stand before God. When God asks why he's come, Elijah says: "I have been zealous to the Lord God, and the people of Israel have abandoned your laws, your alters they've broken, and your prophets they've killed by the sword; I alone am left, and they now seek to take my life." I don't know why Mendelssohn combined the two events into one aria, but it is still a good one. Later in the piece, possibly to make up for lost text, Mendelssohn places Elijah on Mt. Sinai to ask that God once again work cataclismic miracles against his enemies, and then to take his [Elijah's] life.

This recitative does not appear in the Bible.

Answer: After the silence

The Bible makes a point of understating God's appearence, starting from the end of 1 Kings 19:13: "And after the fire - the sound of a moment's silence. And when Elijah heard, he covered his face with his coat [Mendelssohn has Elijah cover his face BEFORE the whole episode], and he went out and stood at the opening of the cave; he heard a voice, and it said to him: 'What do you seek here, Elijah?'" In the music, God appears from the silence, and then a chorus of angels appears and sings: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God..." after which God tells Elijah to go back home and be a prophet.

Answer: None of these.

In fact, Elijah didn't even overthrow Ahab, and he was not told anything of the future on Mt. Sinai, only informed of the present and given the order to annoint two new kings and another prophet to replace him. The very last mention of Elijah in the Bible is at the end of the book of Malachi: "For I am sending you Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the day of God, the Great and the Terrible..." Mendelssohn puts those words in the mouth of a soprano angel, as a recitative at No. 40. I hope you enjoyed this quiz.