SOURCE: "The Scribe Factory," in Opera News, Vol. 41, No. 12, January 29, 1977, pp. 17-19.

In the essay below, Heinsheimer surveys Scribe's work as a librettist, commenting on his prodigious output and his unparalleled success.

A Dutch inn, villagers dancing, soldiers drinking, wandering Anabaptists preaching revolt, an army camp in Westphalia, skating on a frozen lake, a maiden jumping into a river to save her honor, a coronation in a German cathedral, a dungeon, a bacchanale, finally a fire and an all-consuming explosion—operatically most effective, historically most incorrect. (The real prophet, unromantically named Jan Beuckelszoon, was captured and executed.) All this was the stuff that made Augustin Eugène Scribe the most successful, most influential, most significant, most powerful and probably the richest fashioner of opera librettos of his time.

Scribe's Skill as Manipulator of Characters:

It is a mistake … to regard M. Scribe as a comedy-writer at all, though...