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
St. Paul Catholic Church (Highland, Illinois) St. Paul Catholic Church (Highland, Illinois) St. Paul Church is a Roman Catholic parish with an elementary school in the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois located in Highland, Illinois. The Kirchenfest, a church picnic held each year, is one of the largest church festivals in Southern Illinois. Saturday at 4:00 p.m. and Sunday at 8:30 and 10:30 a.m. Kirchenfest, which is German for "Church Festival," is one of the largest church festivals in Southern Illinois. The event spreads over six acres on the grounds of St. Paul Parish. It originally began in 1970. The festival has a German theme, as