But these operas are far more than imitations: they show an apprehension of convention and genre that is nothing less than a dismantling of accepted formulas, and a highly original reconstruction of them."--Jacket.

On 29 February 1836, Les Huguenots, a grand opera by Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791–1864), with words by Eugène Scribe (1791–1861) and Émile Deschamps (1791–1871), was performed for the first time, at the Paris Opéra. It was to be one of the most successful productions ever staged at the Opéra, with 1,126 performances in Paris over the next hundred years, and, in the process, breaking all box office records. It became Meyerbeer’s most popular work, with thousands of stagings throughout the world. Les Huguenots is a huge exploration of faith, tolerance, hatred, extermination, love, loyalty, self-sacrifice and hope in despair. It is the first panel in a central diptych on the Reformation, at the heart of the wider tetralogy of Meyerbeer’s grand operas, where issues of power, religion and love are examined in a variety of modes. For five years after the sensational premiere of Robert le Diable, Meyerbeer worked on this gigantic drama, partly adapted by Scribe from Prosper Mérimée’s Chronique de Charles IX. Meyerbeer matches the text in drama, splendour and ceremony: it combines theatricalism with profound depths of feeling. Its gorgeous colouring, intense passion, consistency of dramatic treatment, and careful delineation of character secured for this work vast fame and influence. It was an epoch-making opera, an enduring monument to Meyerbeer’s fame. The music for this sombre tapestry of the Saint Bartholomew Massacre springs from the core of the vivid action, and creates a panoramic alternation of moods, that capture the tragedy of religious intolerance and personal anguish in one of the most fraught events in history, when some 30,000 French Protestants were murdered during 24 August 1574. Meyerbeer’s music rises to the occasion, and reaches sublime heights of music drama, especially in the fourth and fifth acts, with the Blessing of the Daggers (one of the most electric scenes in all opera), the more powerful Love Duet, and the Trio of Martyrdom in the last moments of the opera. Spectacle was incorporated in the plot, in Meyerbeer’s concern to conjure up the couleur locale of those heroic times. In spite of the overwhelming dramatic power and the instrumental riches of the score, the most significant aspect of the work came to be regarded as the supremacy of the seven principal vocal parts. Performances of Les Huguenots at the Metropolitan Opera in New York during the 1890s were among the most famous in operatic history.

Table of contents

For a period of close to half a century, French grand opéra, as exemplified by the works of Giacomo Meyerbeer and his school, was the preferred form of music for the theatre in most of the civilized world. During the July Monarchy, French grand operas, with their plots drawn from historical events, tended to be received as metaphors for current political themes. Meyerbee’s Le Prophète illustrates the complex, contested nature of political meaning during this period. This opera was set in the context of the emerging liberal historiography pioneered by Jules Michelet, and reactions to it illustrate the manner in which audiences and critics constructed ‘meanings’ with reference to their personal and collective experience and memories, with grand opera occupying a central role at that time. Le Prophète was once one of the most famous of operas, performed over 500 times at the Paris Opéra, and given throughout the civilized world, in the days when opera was ever-present in society. The plot has been called absurd, based as it is on the history of the Anabaptists in Münster (1534-35). However, history is far stranger than fiction, and Eugene Scribe’s libretto provides a modification of the garish facts in the interests of a highly symbolic scenario based on a tragic Reformation episode, and exploring the implication of the role of religion, power and politics in the fate of humanity. The music is powerful, gripping, and torrential in its flow. Each act is beautifully structured, each set piece crafted to perfection, dominated by an overwhelming sound world of instrumental colours and disturbing harmony. The ballet plays a vital function as a countersign to the human deeds of darkness and despair that characterize the action. The Coronation Scene is fascinating, and overwhelming in its impact, one of opera’s greatest moments. This study examines the origins and creation of the opera, its dramaturgy and musical style, the history of its astonishing reception around the world until the 1930s. One of the special features of this book is the collection of iconography associated with the work and its interpretation by many of the greatest singers of the Golden Age of opera.

This 2003 Companion is a fascinating and accessible exploration of the world of grand opera. Through this volume a team of scholars and writers on opera examine those important Romantic operas which embraced the Shakespearean sweep of tragedy, history, love in time of conflict, and the struggle for national self-determination. Rival nations, rival religions and violent resolutions are common elements, with various social or political groups represented in the form of operatic choruses. The book traces the origins and development of a style created during an increasingly technical age, which exploited the world-renowned skills of Parisian stage-designers, artists, and dancers as well as singers. It analyses in detail the grand operas by Rossini, Auber, Meyerbeer and Halévy, discusses grand opera in Russia and Germany, and also in the Czech lands, Italy, Britain and the Americas. The volume also includes an essay by the renowned opera director David Pountney.

Robert le Diable by Giacomo Meyerbeer is regarded as a musical milestone, a definitive statement in the 19th-century development of French grand opéra from the tragédie lyrique of Lully, Rameau, Gluck and Spontini. The libretto by Eugène Scribe and Germain Delavigne was derived from the medieval legend of “Robert the Devil”. First performed on 21 November 1831 at the Paris Opéra, the work brought Meyerbeer international celebrity. Robert le Diable remains a legend in the annals of opera. The fascinating story reveals a complex imagery and symbolism that touches on the deepest intuitions of human experience and personal development, and exercises an archetypal unconscious appeal akin to the nature of fairy tales. The musical language, richly melodic and theatrically powerful, looks back to Rossini and the traditions of bel canto, and yet forges a new formal pliancy and dramatic urgency. The harmony and orchestration, the melodramatic plot, and overwhelming stage effects (especially the famous act 3 Ballet of the Nuns, a touchstone of dark Romanticism) confirmed Meyerbeer as the leading opera composer of his age. His style fuses German counterpoint, Italian melody, French grandeur, and unprecedented orchestral riches in a unique and overwhelming artistic blend. Robert became one of the greatest successes in the history of opera. In the first two years of its history it was given in 69 different theatres, and was performed 754 times at the Paris Opéra until 1893. This huge success was reflected in more than 160 transcriptions, arrangements, paraphrases and fantasias for the orchestra, military band, dance band, piano and other solo instruments written between 1832 and 1955. After many years of neglect, there is a resurgence of interest in this work with its fascinating appeal. This book is devoted to the story of this exceptional opera. It traces the origins, the première, the performance history, and also considers the special characteristics of both the libretto and the music. One of the most intriguing aspects of Robert le Diable was the nature of the iconography generated by its most famous scenes. Artists and illustrators responded in many different ways to the Gambling Scene, the Scene at the Cross, the Cloister Scene for the legendary Ballet of the Nuns, and the great trio in act 5. All of these are examined in terms of the the many different pictorial and plastic responses they inspired over some 60 years.

Focuses on the operatic soprano as the diva and her relationships with technology from the 1820s to the digital age.