Elijah (oratorio) Austrian bass Joseph Staudigl. Mendelssohn had discussed an oratorio based on Elijah in the late 1830s with his friend Karl Klingemann, who had provided him with the libretto for his comic operetta "Die Heimkehr aus der Fremde", which resulted in a partial text that Klingemann was unable to finish. Mendelssohn then turned to , the librettist for his earlier oratorio "St. Paul", who quickly abandoned Klingemann's work and produced his own text that combined the story of Elijah as told in the Book of Kings with psalms. In 1845, the Birmingham Festival commissioned an oratorio from Mendelssohn, who worked with
Elijah at him and told him that he was the one who also sent thunderstorms, which destroyed the farms of poor widows. (After Elijah, Jesus and St. George attempt to get help and eventually succeed). Elias has other pagan associations: a modern legend about Elias mirrors precisely the legend of Odysseus seeking a place where the locals would not recognize an oar—hence the mountaintops. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints acknowledges Elijah as a prophet. The Church teaches that the Malachi prophecy of the return of Elijah was fulfilled on April 3, 1836, when Elijah visited the prophet and