Giacomo Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer
Born to a wealthy
At the same time as his successes in Paris, Meyerbeer, as a Prussian Court Kapellmeister (Director of Music) from 1832, and from 1843 as Prussian General Music Director, was also influential in opera in Berlin and throughout Germany. He was an early supporter of Richard Wagner, enabling the first production of the latter's opera Rienzi. He was commissioned to write the patriotic opera Ein Feldlager in Schlesien to celebrate the reopening of the Berlin Royal Opera House in 1844, and he wrote music for certain Prussian state occasions.
Apart from around 50 songs, Meyerbeer wrote little except for the stage. The critical assaults of Wagner and his supporters, especially after Meyerbeer's death, led to a decline in the popularity of his works; his operas were suppressed by the
Early years
Meyerbeer's birthname was Jacob Liebmann Beer; he was born in Tasdorf (now a part of Rüdersdorf), near Berlin, then the capital of Prussia, to a Jewish family. His father was the wealthy financier Judah Herz Beer (1769–1825) and his mother, Amalia (Malka) Wulff (1767–1854), to whom he was particularly devoted, also came from the moneyed elite. Their other children included the astronomer Wilhelm Beer and the poet Michael Beer.[4] He was to adopt the surname Meyerbeer on the death of his grandfather Liebmann Meyer Wulff (1811) and italianize his first name to Giacomo during his period of study in Italy, around 1817.[5]
Judah Beer was a leader of the Berlin Jewish community and maintained a private synagogue in his house which leaned towards reformist views. Jacob Beer wrote an early cantata for performance at this synagogue.[6] Both Judah Herz Beer and his wife were close to the Prussian court; when Amalia was awarded in 1816 the Order of Louise, she was given, by Royal dispensation, not the traditional Cross but a portrait bust of the Queen. The Beer children were provided with a fine education; their tutors included two of the leaders of the enlightened Jewish intelligentsia, the author Aaron Halle-Wolfssohn and Edmund Kley, (later a reform movement rabbi in Hamburg) to whom they remained attached into their maturity.[7] The brothers Alexander von Humboldt, the renowned naturalist, geographer and explorer, and the philosopher, linguist and diplomat Wilhelm von Humboldt were close friends of the family circle.[8]
Beer's first keyboard instructor was Franz Lauska, a pupil of Johann Georg Albrechtsberger and a favoured teacher at the Berlin court.[9] Beer also became one of Muzio Clementi's pupils while Clementi was in Berlin.[10] The boy made his public debut in 1801 playing Mozart's D minor Piano Concerto in Berlin. The Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung reported: 'The amazing keyboard playing of young Bär (a Jewish lad of 9), who carried off the difficult passages and other solo parts with aplomb, and has fine powers of rendition even more rarely found in one of his age, made the concert even more interesting'.[11]
Beer, as he still named himself, studied with Antonio Salieri and the German master and friend of Goethe, Carl Friedrich Zelter. Louis Spohr organised a concert for Beer at Berlin in 1804 and continued his acquaintance with the lad later in Vienna and Rome.[12] A portrait of Jacob commissioned by the family at this time shows him 'confidently facing the viewer, his hair romantically dishevelled... his left hand rests on the keyboard, and his right hand grasps a musical manuscript... plac[ing] its subject in the tradition of the young Mozart'.[13] Beer's first stage work, the ballet Der Fischer und das Milchmädchen (The Fisherman and the Milkmaid) was produced in March 1810 at the Court Opera in Berlin.[14] His formal training with the Abbé Vogler at Darmstadt between 1810 and 1812 was, however, of crucial importance, and at around this time he begins to sign himself 'Meyer Beer'.[15] Here, with his fellow students (among whom was Carl Maria von Weber), he learned not only the craft of composition but also the business of music (organising concerts and dealing with publishers). Forming a close friendship with Weber and other pupils, Meyerbeer established the Harmonischer Verein (Musical Union), whose members undertook to support each other with favourable press criticism and networking.[16] On 12 February 1813 Beer received the first of the string of honours he was to accumulate throughout his life when he was appointed 'Court Composer' by Grand Duke Ludwig of Hesse-Darmstadt.[17] He was also in close contact with Ludwig van Beethoven as he played timpani at the premiere of his Seventh Symphony in December 1813. Beethoven complained that Meyerbeer was “always behind the beat”. But nonetheless, Beethoven saw musical potential on the young Beer.
Throughout his early career, although determined to become a musician, Beer found it difficult to decide between playing and composition. Certainly, other professionals in the decade 1810–1820, including Moscheles, considered him amongst the greatest virtuosi of his period.[18] He wrote during this period numerous piano pieces, including a concerto and set of variations for piano and orchestra, but these have been lost.[19] To this period also belongs a Clarinet Quintet written for the virtuoso Heinrich Baermann (1784–1847) who remained a close friend of the composer.[20]
Career
In Italy
Despite performances of his
During his years in Italy Meyerbeer became acquainted with, and impressed by, the works of his contemporary
Recognition
The name Giacomo Meyerbeer first became known internationally with his opera Il crociato in Egitto—premiered in Venice in 1824 and produced in London and Paris in 1825; incidentally, it was the last opera ever written to feature a castrato, and the last to require keyboard accompaniment for recitatives. This 'breakthrough' in Paris was exactly what Meyerbeer had been aiming for over the past ten years; he had been carefully preparing for it, developing contacts, and fully reaped his reward.[27]
In 1826, shortly after the death of his father, Meyerbeer married his cousin, Minna Mosson (1804–1886). The marriage which may have been 'dynastic' in its origins turned out to be stable and devoted; the couple were to have five children, of whom the three youngest (all daughters) survived to adulthood.[28] In the same year, following the death of Carl Maria von Weber, Weber's widow asked Meyerbeer to complete her husband's unfinished comic opera Die drei Pintos. This was to cause him much trouble over future years, as he found the material insufficient to work on. Eventually, in 1852 he settled the matter with Weber's heirs by handing them Weber's drafts and cash compensation. (The opera was later completed by Gustav Mahler).[29]
With his next opera Meyerbeer became virtually a superstar.
The success of the opera led to Meyerbeer himself becoming a celebrity. In January 1832 he was awarded membership of the
The fusion of dramatic music, melodramatic plot, and sumptuous staging in Robert le diable proved a sure-fire formula, as did the partnership with Scribe, which Meyerbeer would go on to repeat in
Between Paris and Berlin
1832–1839
Letellier describes Meyerbeer's mature life as 'a tale of two cities...His artistic triumph and legendary status were achieved in Paris...but he never abandoned Prussia, especially his home city of Berlin'.[38] His wife Minna was based in Berlin (she did not enjoy Paris) as was his beloved mother; and he had a series of Royal duties from the Prussian court, stemming from his appointment as Court Kapellmeister in 1832.[39][40] For these reasons his life from 1830 onwards is characterised by travel between these two centres.
In Paris Meyerbeer had been asked by Louis Véron, the director of the Opéra, for a new work. At first, he attempted to persuade Véron to accept the opéra-comique Le portefaix to a libretto by Scribe,[n 3] which he had been contracted to compose in early 1831; but Véron insisted on a full five-act piece. Together with Scribe, Meyerbeer reviewed many subjects before deciding, in 1832, on Les Huguenots. The contract which Meyerbeer signed with Véron contained a penalty clause if the work was not delivered by the end of 1833. When the time came and the opera was not ready, Véron claimed his 30,000 francs under this clause; Meyerbeer was perhaps unique amongst composers in being able to pay this. In fact, Véron refunded the money under a further agreement, when the opera was delivered in late 1834; but Veron himself was replaced as director of the Opera by Henri Duponchel before Les Huguenots was premiered on 29 February 1836.[41] It was an immediate and immense success, its splendid staging and effects exceeding even those of Fromental Halévy's La Juive, which had premiered the previous year.[42] Berlioz called the score "a musical encyclopaedia", and the singing, especially of Nourrit and Falcon, was universally praised.[43] Les Huguenots was the first opera to be performed at the Opéra more than 1,000 times (the 1,000th performance being on 16 May 1906)[44] and continued to be produced up to 1936, more than a century after its premiere.[45] Its many performances in all other of the world's major opera houses give it a claim to being the most successful opera of the 19th century.
However, in Berlin Meyerbeer faced many problems, including the enmity of the jealous
Meanwhile, in Paris Meyerbeer began to seek new libretti, initially considering Le prophète by Scribe, and Le cinq mars by Henri Saint-Georges and eventually settling on Scribe's Vasco da Gama (later to become L'Africaine), which he contracted to complete by 1840. However, Meyerbeer had envisaged that the main role in L'Africaine would be written for Falcon; after the catastrophic failure of her voice in 1837, he turned instead to Le prophète.[40]
On 20 August 1839, Meyerbeer, whilst relaxing at
The 1840s
By the end of 1841, Meyerbeer had completed the first draft of Le prophète, but refused to stage it because the then director of the opera, Leon Pillet, wished to cast his mistress, Rosine Stoltz, in the part of Fidès, the hero's mother. (Berlioz characterised Stoltz as 'la Directrice du Directeur'). Meyerbeer insisted on Pauline Viardot for the role. Meyerbeer lodged the score with a Parisian lawyer, and refused to countenance any production until his wishes were met. Only in 1849 was the Opéra willing to agree to his conditions. Meyerbeer was unique in his time in having the wealth and influence to impose his will as a composer in this way.[51]
In the meantime, the situation in Prussia was changing. Following the death of
In 1843 the Berlin Opera house burned down. The creation of the new building gave a new opportunity to commission a German opera from Meyerbeer. The subject of the opera, Ein Feldlager in Schlesien (A Silesian Encampment), was an episode in the life of Frederick the Great. As this patriotic opera 'needed' Prussian creators, Meyerbeer arranged that whilst the trusted Scribe would write the libretto, Rellstab would translate it and take the credit (and the royalties). This had the added advantage of winning over the formerly hostile Rellstab. Meyerbeer had hoped to have Jenny Lind (for whom he had written the part) sing the lead role of Vielka, but the opera premiered on 7 December 1844 without her (although she did appear in subsequent performances).[53] The libretto was revised by Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer to a Bohemian background as Vielka for a production in Vienna (1847). (In a further incarnation, the music was later used by Meyerbeer for a revamped libretto by Scribe featuring Peter the Great, and produced as an opéra comique in Paris (L'étoile du nord, 1854)).[54]
With the continuing delays in the production of Le prophète and L'Africaine, Meyerbeer was now becoming subject to increasing sniping in Paris. In 1846 Meyerbeer began work on a new project with Scribe and Saint-Georges, Noëma, but in the following year Pillet was sacked from the opera and the direction was resumed by Duponchel. As a consequence, Meyerbeer was at last able to stage Le prophète with a cast to his liking, (including Viardot as Fidès), and it premiered on 16 April 1849.[54] Again Meyerbeer's new opera was an outstanding success – despite the unusual feature of the lead female role being the hero's mother, rather than his lover. Amongst those at the 47th performance in February 1850 was Richard Wagner, now an impoverished political exile; the success of a work so fundamentally against his own operatic principles was one of the spurs to his spiteful anti-Jewish denunciation of Meyerbeer and Mendelssohn, Das Judenthum in der Musik (1850).[55]
Last years
Increasing ill health (or possibly
Nevertheless, Meyerbeer's last years saw the composition of a good deal of non-operatic music, including a Coronation March for
Meyerbeer died in Paris on 2 May 1864. Rossini, who, not having heard the news, came to his apartment the next day intending to meet him, was shocked and fainted. He was moved to write on the spot a choral tribute (Pleure, pleure, muse sublime!).[60] A special train bore Meyerbeer's body from the Gare du Nord to Berlin on 6 May, where he was buried in the family vault at the Jewish cemetery in Schönhauser Allee.[56]
L'Africaine was eventually premiered after Meyerbeer's death at the Salle Le Peletier on 28 April 1865 in a performing edition undertaken by François-Joseph Fétis.
Personality and beliefs
Meyerbeer's immense wealth (increased by the success of his operas) and his continuing adherence to his Jewish religion set him apart somewhat from many of his musical contemporaries. They also gave rise to rumours that his success was due to his bribing musical critics.[n 5] Richard Wagner (see below) accused him of being interested only in money, not music. Meyerbeer was, however, a deeply serious musician and a sensitive personality. He philosophically resigned himself to being a victim of his own success: his extensive diaries and correspondence – which survived the turmoil of 20th-century Europe and have now been published in eight volumes[61] – are an invaluable source for the history of music and theatre in the composer's time.
Meyerbeer's personal attachment to Judaism was a mature personal decision – after the death of his maternal grandfather in 1811 he wrote to his mother: 'Please accept from me a promise that I will always live in the religion in which he died'.
I believe that richess is like love in the theatres and novels: no matter how often one encounters it...it never misses its target if effectively wielded...[Nothing] can grow back the foreskin of which we are robbed on the eighth day of life; those who, on the ninth day, do not bleed from this operation shall continue to bleed an entire lifetime, even after death.[65]
It was probably a similar fatalism that led Meyerbeer never to enter public controversy with those who slighted him, either professionally or personally, although he occasionally displayed his grudges in his Diaries; for example, on hearing Robert Schumann conduct in 1850: 'I saw for the first time the man who, as a critic, has persecuted me for twelve years with a deadly enmity.'[66]
In his mature operas, Meyerbeer selected stories which almost invariably featured as a major element of storyline a hero living within a hostile environment. Robert, Raoul the Huguenot, Jean the prophet, and the defiant Vasco da Gama in L'Africaine are all 'outsiders'. It has been suggested that 'Meyerbeer's choice of these topics is not accidental; they reflect his own sense of living in a potentially inimical society.'[67]
Meyerbeer's relationship with Heine displays the awkwardness and prickliness of the social personae of both parties. Meyerbeer, apart from any of his personal feelings, needed Heine onside as an influential personality and writer on music. He genuinely admired Heine's verse, and made a number of settings from it. Heine, living in Paris from 1830, was always equivocal about his loyalties between Judaism and Christianity, and always short of money, asked Meyerbeer to intervene with Heine's own family for financial support and frequently took loans and money from Meyerbeer himself. He was not above threatening Meyerbeer with blackmail by writing satirical pieces about him (and indeed Meyerbeer paid Heine's widow to suppress such writings).[68] And yet, at Heine's death in 1856, Meyerbeer wrote in his diary: 'Peace be to his ashes. I forgive him from my heart for his ingratitude and many wickednesses against me.'[69]
Music and theatre
Music
Meyerbeer did not operate on the basis of any theory or philosophy of music and was not an innovator in
All of his significant music is for the voice (opera and songs) and this reflects his detailed grounding in Italian opera.[71] Throughout his career he wrote his operas with specific singers in mind and took great care to temper his writing to their strengths; but at the same time he seemed little interested in expressing the emotions of his characters, preferring to use his music to underline the larger-scale machinations of the plot.[72] In this way he was close to the ideas of his teacher Vogler, himself renowned for his dramatic depictions of nature and incidents in keyboard music, who wrote in 1779 that: "writing beautifully is easy; expression is not too difficult; but only the genius of a great painter...can choose for each picture agreeable and natural colours that are particular to it."[73] Indeed, Meyerbeer's devotion to the voice often led him to ignore the dramatic cohesion of his operas; typically, he would write far too much music and the scores of his operas would have to be drastically cut during rehearsals.[74] (The lengthy overture to Le prophète had to be cut in its entirety, surviving only in a piano arrangement by Charles-Valentin Alkan.)[75]
The first signs of Meyerbeer breaking with the Italian traditions in which he had trained are in Il crociato in Egitto. Amongst other notable features of the opera were its lavish orchestral forces (extending to two onstage military bands in the final act). The grandiosity of the work reflected the need to make an impact on the sophisticated and technologically advanced stages of London and Paris, for which it was extensively rewritten. Meyerbeer's contribution was revealed at this stage to be the combination of Italian vocal lines, German orchestration and harmony, and the use of contemporary theatrical techniques,[76] ideas which he carried forward in Robert and his later works.[77] However Meyerbeer's background in the Italian operatic traditions can be clearly seen as late as 1859 in the 'mad scene' in Dinorah (the virtuoso aria Ombre légère).[78]
Typical of Meyerbeer's innovative orchestration is the use in Robert le diable of dark-toned instruments – bassoons, timpani and low brass, including ophicleide – to characterise the diabolical nature of Bertram and his associates. At one point the arrival of a character is announced by a combination of three solo timpani and pizzicato double-basses.[79] Similar adventurousness is shown in Les Huguenots where the composer uses a solo bass clarinet[80] and solo viola d'amore[81] to accompany arias. For Le prophète, Meyerbeer considered using the newly invented saxophone.[82] Becker suggests that Meyerbeer in all his grand operas often: 'created a deliberately 'unbeautiful' sound.....with unusual orchestration designed to express ...content rather than produce a sensuous sound' and opines that this explains much of the criticism he received from German writers on music.[83]
Theatre
Meyerbeer's concern to integrate musical power with all the resources of contemporary theatre anticipated in some ways the ideas of Wagner's Gesamtkunstwerk. Becker writes:
Wagner's idea of music drama...was originally developed by way of grand opera...his ideas could never have been realised in their particular form without the pioneering development[s]...that Meyerbeer's operas were the first to demand.[84]
Meyerbeer was always concerned to intensify the theatricality of his operas, even when new ideas emerged at a relatively late stage in the music's composition. An example of his receptiveness was the addition of the provocative "Ballet of the Nuns" in the third act of Robert le diable, at the suggestion of Duponchel. The set for the ballet was an innovative and striking design by Duponchel and
Meyerbeer's large choral 'tableaux' also made a major contribution to the overall dramatic effect; the composer particularly sought opportunities to write such large-scale crowd scenes, and preferred libretti which offered such possibilities.[84] Crosten writes: 'These massive developed sections are the chief glory of the Meyerbeerian opera, for they are not only big in volume but big in their structural design'.[89]
Mention should also be made of Meyerbeer's intense concern with the business of opera, which indeed had formed part of his studies under Vogler. This gave him the background not only to deal with complex contractual issues and to negotiate with publishers but extended to wooing the press and 'marketing' in general. Indeed, he was probably the originator of the 'press conference' at which journalists were fed refreshments and information.[90][91] This marketing and commercialisation of opera was reinforced by Meyerbeer's Paris publisher Maurice Schlesinger who had established his fortune on the back of Robert, and even persuaded Honoré de Balzac to write a novella (Gambara) to promote Les Huguenots.[92] Schlesinger's publication of Franz Liszt's Reminiscences de Robert le diable sold out on the day of issue and was immediately reprinted.[93] Such manoeuvres did little to endear Meyerbeer to his fellow artists, and indeed engendered envious comments of the sort already quoted from Berlioz and Chopin.
Reception
Musical influence
Meyerbeer had no pupils and no direct 'school'. Yet as his works spanned
Themes from Meyerbeer's works were used by many contemporary composers, often in the form of keyboard paraphrases or fantasies. Perhaps the most elaborate and substantial of these is Franz Liszt's monumental
Liszt also wrote piano works based on Robert le diable, notably the Réminiscences de Robert le diable[98] subtitled Valse infernale. He also transcribed two pieces from L'Africaine, as "Illustrations de l'opéra L'Africaine".[99] Frédéric Chopin and Auguste Franchomme jointly composed a Grand duo concertant on themes from the opera, for cello and piano, in 1832,[100] and the Italian pianist and composer Adolfo Fumagalli composed an elaborate fantasy on the opera for left hand alone as his Op. 106.[101] Other pieces based on the opera included works by Adolf von Henselt[102] and Jean-Amédée Méreaux. Similar works, of varying musical quality, were churned out by composers for each of the further operas in attempts to cash in on their success.
Critical reception
Meyerbeer's operas consistently enjoyed enormous popularity during his lifetime, and the verdict of (the then pro-Meyerbeer) Wagner in 1841, when the Paris Opéra was vainly awaiting Le prophète and L'Africaine, was not atypical:
The Paris Opéra lies dying. It looks for its salvation to the German Messiah, Meyerbeer; if he keeps it waiting much longer, its death agonies will begin...It is for that reason...that one only sees Robert le Diable and Les Huguenots turning up again when the mediocrities are forced to withdraw.[103]
However, dissenting voices were heard from critics. Not all of these however were on musical grounds. Berlioz for example raised the issue of the inhibiting effects of Meyerbeer's success (which he felt particularly as one who struggled to get his works performed): "The pressure [Meyerbeer] exerts on managers, artists and critics, and consequently on the Paris public, at least as much by his immense wealth as by his eclectic talent, makes all serious success at the Opéra virtually impossible. This baneful influence may still be felt ten years after his death: Heinrich Heine maintains he has 'paid in advance'."[104]
Mendelssohn disapproved of Meyerbeer's works on moral grounds, believing Robert le diable to be 'ignoble'.[105]
Schumann's attack on Les Huguenots was clearly a personal diatribe against Meyerbeer's Judaism: 'Time and time again we had to turn away in disgust...One may search in vain for a sustained pure thought, a truly Christian sentiment...It is all contrived, all make believe and hypocrisy!...The shrewdest of composers rubs his hands with glee.'[106]
Wagner's disciple Theodor Uhlig followed Schumann's Judaeophobic line in his 1850 review of Le prophète: 'To a good Christian [it] is at best contrived, exaggerated, unnatural and slick, and it is not possible that the practised propaganda of the Hebrew art-taste can succeed using such means.'[107] Uhlig's phrase 'the Hebrew art-taste' was to be used by Richard Wagner to spark off his attack on Meyerbeer, Das Judenthum in der Musik (Jewishness in Music) (see below).
In 1911, the composer Charles Villiers Stanford cited Meyerbeer's music as an example of the dangers he believed lay in improvising at the piano without a clear plan, (although there is in fact no evidence to suggest Meyerbeer worked in this way), writing: 'Man of genius though he was, as any man who wrote the fourth act of the Huguenots must have been, Meyerbeer is a sign-post of this danger of trusting to the pianoforte as a medium of inspiration.'[108]
Wagner's campaign against Meyerbeer
The vitriolic campaign of Richard Wagner against Meyerbeer was to a great extent responsible for the decline of Meyerbeer's popularity after his death in 1864.
Wagner's early correspondence with Meyerbeer, up to 1846, is described by historian David Conway as "cringingly obsequious".[112] However, from the early 1840s, as Wagner developed Tannhäuser and Lohengrin, his ideas on opera increasingly diverged from Meyerbeerean standards; even in 1843 Wagner had written to Schumann condemning Meyerbeer's work as 'a striving after superficial popularity'.[113] During 1846 Meyerbeer turned down Wagner's application for a loan of 1,200 thalers, and this may have marked a turning point.[114]
In particular, after 1849, Wagner resented Meyerbeer's continuing success at a time when his own vision of German opera had little chance of prospering. After the
In his major theoretical statement,
As Wagner prospered, it became second nature for him, his wife Cosima and the Wagner circle to deprecate Meyerbeer and his works, and Cosima's Diaries contain numerous instances of this – (as well as recording a dream of Wagner's in which he and Meyerbeer were reconciled).[121] Wagner's autobiography Mein Leben, circulated amongst his friends (and published openly in 1911), contains constant sniping at Meyerbeer and concludes with Wagner receiving the news of Meyerbeer's death, and his companions' gratification at the news.[122] The downgrading of Meyerbeer became a commonplace amongst Wagnerites: in 1898, George Bernard Shaw, in The Perfect Wagnerite, commented that: "Nowadays young people cannot understand how anyone could have taken Meyerbeer's influence seriously."[123]
Thus as Wagner's stock rose, Meyerbeer's fell. In 1890, the year before the Paris premiere of Wagner's Lohengrin, there were no Wagner performances at the Paris Opéra, and 32 performances of Meyerbeer's four grand operas. In 1909, there were 60 Wagner performances, and only three of Meyerbeer's (Les Huguenots being the sole work performed).[124]
Reevaluation
Meyerbeer's costly operas, requiring grand casts of leading singers, were gradually dropped from the repertoire in the early 20th century. They were banned in Germany from 1933, and subsequently in subject countries, by the Nazi regime because the composer was Jewish,[n 6] and this was a major factor in their further disappearance from the repertory.
One of the first serious post-war studies of Meyerbeer and grand opera was Crosten's 1948 book Grand Opera: An Art and a Business[125] which laid out the themes and standards for much subsequent research. A major contribution to the revival of interest in Meyerbeer was the work of the scholar Heinz Becker, leading to the complete publication, between 1960 and 2006, of Meyerbeer's complete diaries and correspondence in German, which are an important source for musical history of the era.[126] The English scholar Robert Letellier has translated the diaries and undertaken a wide range of Meyerbeer studies.[127] The establishment of a 'Meyerbeer Fan Club' in America[128] also stimulated interest.
Most importantly the operas themselves have been revived and recorded, although despite the efforts of such champions as Dame Joan Sutherland, who took part in performances of, and recorded, Les Huguenots, they have yet to achieve anything like the huge popular following they attracted during their creator's lifetime. Recordings are now available of all the operas from Il crociato onwards, for many of the earlier Italian operas, and for other pieces including his songs and the incidental music for Struensee.
Amongst the reasons often adduced for the dearth of productions in the 20th century were the scale of Meyerbeer's more ambitious works and the cost of mounting them, as well as the alleged lack of virtuoso singers capable of doing justice to Meyerbeer's demanding music. However, successful productions of some of the major operas at relatively small centres such as
On 9 September 2013 a plaque to mark Meyerbeer's last residence was put up at Pariser Platz 6a, Berlin.[143]
Selected honours and awards
- 1813 – Awarded title of Court and Chamber composer to Louis II, Grand Duke of Hesse.[144]
- 1836 – Created Knight in the Royal Order of King Leopold I.[145]
- 1842 – Awarded Pour le Mérite for sciences and arts (Prussia).[146]
- 1842 – Awarded Order of the Oak Crown by King William II of the Netherlands.[144]
- 1842 – Created Knight of the Order of the Polar Star by King Oscar I of Sweden.[144]
- 1850 – Awarded Honorary Doctorate in Philosophy by the University of Jena.[144]
On film
Vernon Dobtcheff played the role of Giacomo Meyerbeer in the 1983 film Wagner.
See also
Notes
- ^ Pronunciation: UK: /ˈdʒækəmoʊ ˈmaɪ.ərbɪər/ JAK-ə-moh MY-ər-beer, US: /ˈdʒɑːk-/ JAHK-, German: [ˈdʒaːkomoː ˈmaɪɐbeːɐ̯], Italian: [ˈdʒaːkomo ˈmaːjerber].
- ^ Both cited in Conway (2012), pp. 252–3. Both Veron and Meyerbeer however were later to deny the rumours that the composer had subsidized the production – see Becker (1989), pp. 147–8
- ^ Eventually set by the composer José Melchor Gomis (1835).
- ^ Heinrich Heine wrote satirically following this appointment: "Lately [Spontini] was found in the upper halls of the Louvre…before a great mummy, whose magnificent gold mask proclaimed a monarch who could be no less than [he] under whose rule the children of Israel left the land of Egypt… At last breaking silence, [he] spoke as follows to his distinguished fellow-mummy: “Unhappy Pharaoh, cause of my misfortunes! Hadst thou not suffered … Israel to depart from … Egypt, or if thou hadst only drowned them in the Nile…It has come to pass, in consequence of thy half-way measures, that I am now a ruined man, and Moses and Halévy and Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer have now conquered" (Heine (1893), pp. 435–6)
- ^ Becker comments: 'It is often maintained that Meyerbeer bribed the press, but in fact he had no need to. Journalists like [the critics] Fiorentino, Scudo and Spazier, who were normally in financial difficulties, put themselves in his power by their persistent demands for loans' (Becker (1980), p. 253)
- Lexikon der Juden in der Musik (ed. Theophil Stengel and Herbert Gerigk, Berlin:Hahnefeld, 1941). This entry quotes extensively from Wagner and Schumann, and from contemporary Nazi musicologists.
References
Citations
- ^ Brzoska (2015), §Introduction
- ^ Meyerbeer & Letellier (1999–2004) I, 15 (Foreword by Heinz Becker)
- ^ Berlioz (1969), 576
- ^ Conway (2012), 152–3
- ^ Conway (2012), 165–6, 247
- ^ Conway (2012), 156–7
- ^ Conway (2012), 153–4, 165
- ^ Becker (1989) 60, 206
- ^ Zimmermann, 22
- ^ Becker (1983), 9
- ^ cited in Zimmerman (1991), 24
- ^ Spohr (1961) 58, 90, 127
- ^ Conway (2012), 160
- ^ Meyerbeer & Letellier (1999–2004) I, 255
- ^ Becker (1989), 20
- ^ Conway (2011) 162–3
- ^ Meyerbeer & Letellier (1999–2004), I 27
- ^ Moscheles (1873) I, 11
- ^ Becker (1980), 247, 255
- ^ Becker (1989), 91–2
- ^ Conway (2011), 163
- ^ Becker (1980), 247
- ^ Becker (1989), 33
- ^ Meyerbeer & Letellier (1999–2004) I, 61
- ^ Meyerbeer (1970), 7–9
- ^ Meyerbeer (1960–2006) I, 323
- ^ Conway (2012) 248–9
- ^ Meyerbeer & Letellier (1999–2004) I, 57–9
- ^ Becker (1980), 248
- ^ a b Brzoska (2003), p. 190
- ^ Heubner (1992), p. 1357
- ^ Fétis 1862, p. 179.
- ^ Smart 2003, pp. 113–4
- ^ Everist (1994), 210
- ^ Becker (1989), 39
- ^ Kaufman, A Few Words
- ^ a b Meyerbeer & Letellier (1999–2004) I, 35
- ^ Meyerbeer & Letellier (1999–2004) I, 55
- ^ Meyerbeer & Letellier (1999–2004) I, 27, 53–5.
- ^ a b Becker (1980), 249
- ^ Becker (1980), 249. For details of the financial transactions see Kelly (2004), 201–7
- ^ Kelly (2004), 197
- ^ Kelly (2004), 192–4
- ^ Brzoska 2003, p. 206.
- ^ Wolff 1962, pp. 116–117.
- ^ Becker (1989) 51–2, Meyerbeer (1999–2004), I, 210
- ^ Becker (1989), 77
- ^ Letter of 20 October 1837 to Gottfried Weber, cited in Becker (1989), 78–9
- ^ Newman (1976) I, 269–70
- ^ Newman (1976) I, 316
- ^ Conway (2012), 256
- ^ Becker (1980) 250; Becker (1989), 108–9
- ^ Becker (1989), 96
- ^ a b Becker (1980) 250–1
- ^ Conway (2012), 256, 260–4
- ^ a b Becker (1980), 251
- ^ Becker (1980), 250–1
- ^ Becker (1989) 195
- ^ Conway (2012), 220
- ^ Becker (1989), 181
- ^ Meyerbeer, (1960–2006)
- ^ Becker (1989), 25–6
- ^ Thomson (1975), 56
- ^ Conway (2012), 167–8
- ^ Becker (1989),81–2
- ^ Meyerbeer & Letellier (1999–2004), II, 22
- ^ Conway (2012), 248
- ^ Becker (1958), passim
- ^ Meyerbeer & Letellier (1999–2004), III, 365–6
- ^ Roberts (2003), 210–1
- ^ Brzoska (2003), 189
- ^ Roberts (2003), 210.
- ^ Cited in Roberts (2003), 210
- ^ Roberts (2003), 210
- ^ Brzoska (1998)
- ^ Mongrédien (1998) 68–72; Conway (2012) 248–9
- ^ Brzoska (2003), 191
- ^ Becker (1989), 162–3
- ^ Brzoska (2003), 195
- ^ Brzoska (2003), 205
- ^ Rosenblum (1980)
- ^ Brzoska, (2004) section III
- ^ Becker (1980), 252
- ^ a b c Becker (1980), 253
- ^ Carnegy (2006), 15–6
- ^ Carlson (1972), 75.
- ^ Becker (1989), 122–3
- ^ Meyerbeer & Letellier (1999–2004) II, 340–4
- ^ Crosten (1948), 123
- ^ Conway (2012) 163, 253–5
- ^ Becker (1980), 255
- ^ Conway (2012), 238, 255
- ^ Walker (1983), 167
- ^ Huebner (2003), 292–3
- ^ Pospisil (1998)
- ^ Cerkasena (1998); quote from Tchaikovsky on p. 457
- ^ Fantasy and Fugue on the chorale "Ad nos ad salutarem undam": Scores at the International Music Score Library Project, accessed 28 May 2014.
- ^ Réminiscences de Robert le diable, S.413: Scores at the International Music Score Library Project, accessed 28 May 2014.
- ^ Illustrations de l'opéra 'L'Africaine', S.415 (1865): Scores at the International Music Score Library Project, accessed 28 May 2014.
- ^ Grand duo concertant sur des thèmes de 'Robert le diable', B.70": Scores at the International Music Score Library Project, accessed 28 May 2014.
- ^ Grande Fantaisie pour Piano pour la main gauche sur 'Robert le Diable' de Meyerbeer: Scores at the International Music Score Library Project, accessed 28 May 2014.
- ^ Variations de Concert on ‘Quand Je Quittai La Normandie’ from Meyerbeer's 'Robert le Diable', Op.11: Scores at the International Music Score Library Project, accessed 28 May 2014.
- ^ Wagner (1973), 111. Wagner withheld this pro-Meyerbeer article, originally written for the Dresdner Abendzeitung, from his Collected Works.
- ^ Berlioz (1969) 569
- ^ Letter to Klingemann of 1832, cited in Todd (2003), 251–2
- ^ Schumann (1965), 137–8
- ^ Cited in Conway (2012), 259
- ^ Stanford (1911), 180
- ^ Conway (2012), pp. 261–2
- ^ Newman (1976) I, 212
- ^ Newman (1976) I, 385–6; Becker (1989) 87–9
- ^ Conway (2012), 199
- ^ Wagner (1987), 69
- ^ Rose (1996), 202
- ^ Conway (2012) 261–4
- ^ Wagner (1995b), 89
- ^ Wagner (1995a), 95–6
- ^ Wagner (1995a), 47
- ^ Rose (1992), 114–8
- ^ Rose (1996), esp. 77–88
- ^ Cosima Wagner (1980). See II, 461
- ^ Wagner (1992), 739
- ^ Shaw (1981), III, 530–531
- ^ Huebner (2003), 301
- ^ Crosten (1948)
- ^ Meyerbeer (1960–2006)
- ^ Meyerbeer & Letellier (1999–2004), Letellier (2005) and (2008)
- ^ "Meyerbeer Fan Club Home Page". meyerbeer.com. Archived from the original on 12 May 2006.
- ^ Loomis, George (21 June 2011). "'Les Huguenots,' Making Operatic History Again". New York Times. Retrieved 16 June 2014.
- ^ "Die Hugenotten – Les Huguenots". Staatstheater Nürnberg.com. Retrieved 16 June 2014.
- ^ "Meyerbeers "Hugenotten" in Berlin gefeiert". shz.de. Archived from the original on 29 November 2016. Retrieved 28 November 2016.
- ^ Woolfe, Zachary (2 October 2018). "After 350 Years, Paris Still Defines Opera". New York Times. Retrieved 22 November 2018.
- ^ Conway, David (October 2012). "Meyerbeer Re-evaluated". Jewish Renaissance. 12 (1): 40–41.
- ^ Royal Opera House website 2012/13 season – page on Robert le diable Archived 19 January 2013 at the Wayback Machine, accessed 9 June 2012
- ^ "Vasco de Gama". Die Theater Chemnitz. Archived from the original on 14 July 2014.
- ^ "Giacomo Meyerbeer – Vasco da Gama". Kulturradio. Archived from the original on 15 June 2014. Retrieved 15 June 2014.
- ^ "Opernhaus des Jahres". Kultiversum.de. Retrieved 15 June 2014.
- ^ Solare, Carlos Maria. Report from Berlin. Opera, Vol 67 No 2, February 2016, p. 193–4.
- ^ von Sternburg, Judith (20 October 2015). "Karlsruhe "Der Prophet"". Frankfurter Rundschau. Retrieved 15 December 2018.
- ^ Roling, Laura. "Thrilling Le Prophète in Essen". operacriticsonline.com. Retrieved 15 December 2018.
- ^ Migge, Thomas (12 July 2017). "Le Prophète in Toulouse". klassikinfo.de. Retrieved 15 December 2018.
- ^ Goldmann, A.J. "Le Prophète". operanews.com. Retrieved 15 December 2018.[permanent dead link]
- ^ Quandt, Reinhold. "On the 150th anniversary of the death of Giacomo Meyerbeer". Ricordi.de. Retrieved 16 June 2014.
- ^ a b c d Meyerbeer & Letellier (1999–2004)
- ^ Pasinomie: collection complète des lois, décrets, ordonnances, arrêtés et règlements généraux qui peuvent être invoqués en Belgique (in French). E. Bruylant. 1836.
- ISBN 978-3-7861-6189-9.
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External links
- Free scores by Giacomo Meyerbeer at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
- List of Meyerbeer works at the Index to Opera and Ballet Sources Online
- Guide to the Giacomo Meyerbeer Collection at the Leo Baeck Institute, New York
- Conway, David, "Meyerbeer the Jew" (On website dedicated to Jewish musicians) (accessed 7 December 2017).
- Meyerbeer Fan Club site at meyerbeer.com
- Meyerbeer cylinder recordings, from the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project at the University of California, Santa BarbaraLibrary
- A Meyerbeer discography (updated to 2009) at the Wayback Machine (archived 27 October 2009)
- Recordings of Meyerbeer's operas as listed on operadis-opera-discography.org.uk/
- Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911. .