Giacomo Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer was born in Berlin, Germany, on September 5, 1791. His name, at birth, was Jakob Liebmann Beer. When Meyer, a rich relative, left him a legacy, he decided to change his name to Meyerbeer; some years later upon initiating a career as composer of Italian operas he Italianized his name. His music study took place with Clementi, Zelter, Anselm Weber and Vogler, the last of whom encouraged him to write his first opera, Jephtha’s Vow (Jephtha’s Geluebde), a failure when first performed in Munich in 1812. A second opera, performed in Stuttgart, was also a failure; Meyerbeer now seriously entertained the thought of abandoning composition altogether. The noted Viennese composer and teacher, Antonio Salieri, however, convinced him what he needed was more study. This took place in Italy where for several years Meyerbeer assimilated Italian traditions of opera. His first endeavor in this style was Romilda e Costanza, a success when introduced in Padua in 1817. During the next few years Meyerbeer wrote several more operas, some of them on commission, and became one of Italy’s most highly regarded composers for the stage. In 1826, Meyerbeer settled in Paris where association with composers like Cherubini and Halévy, made him impatient with the kind of operas he had thus far created. In 1831, with Robert le Diable, he entered upon a new artistic phase in which Italian methods, procedures and traditions were discarded in favor of the French. Robert le Diable, produced at the Opera on November 21, 1831 was a sensation. Meyerbeer continued writing operas in the French style for the remainder of his life. These are the operas by which he is most often represented in the world’s opera theaters: Les Huguenots (1836), Le Prophète (1849), and L’Africaine (1865). Meyerbeer died in Paris on May 2, 1864.
Meyerbeer was an exponent of drama in the grand style, his finest operas being filled with big climactic scenes, elaborate stage effects, and eye-filling visual displays. But he also had a pronounced dramatic gift, one which evoked from Wagner the highest admiration; and a pronounced expressiveness of lyricism.
L’Africaine (The African) is Meyerbeer’s last opera, and many regarded it as his best. He completed it in 1864 just before his death, and its world première at the Paris Opera took place posthumously on April 28, 1865. The text, by Eugène Scribe, is set in Lisbon and Madagascar in the 15th century. The main action concerns the love of Selika, an African queen, for the Portuguese explorer, Vasco da Gama; Da Gama in turn is loved by Inez, daughter of Don Diego. Selika offers the explorer a secret route to the land of which she is queen, Madagascar, and with which Da Gama becomes enraptured. But when Inez appears, he abandons Selika for her, and leaves the magic island. Heartbroken, Selika kills herself by breathing the deadly fragrance of a manchineel tree.
The opera’s most popular excerpt is Vasco da Gama’s rapturous tenor aria from the fourth act in which he describes the beauty of Madagascar, “O Paradis.” Another vocal favorite is the baritone ballad of Nelusko, slave of Selika, “Adamastor, roi des vagues profondes”; as he steers the ship bearing Selika and Vasco da Gama to Madagascar he sings of Adamastor, monarch of the sea, who sends ships to their doom on treacherous reefs.
The Coronation March (Marche du couronnement)—music of pomp and circumstance—comes from the opera Le Prophète, first performed at the Paris Opéra on April 16, 1849. Eugène Scribe’s libretto is based on an actual historical episode in 16th century Holland centered around the Anabaptist uprising, with John of Leyden, leader of the Anabaptists, as the principal character. In Act four, scene two, John is being crowned king outside the Muenster Cathedral. As a magnificent royal procession enters the Cathedral, the music of the Coronation March matches in splendor and grandeur the visual majesty of this scene. Another popular musical excerpt for orchestra from this opera is Prelude to Act 3, a colorful and rhythmic Quadrille that leads into the opening scene of that act, providing the lively musical background for a ballet and ice-carnival skating scene. Liszt made a technically brilliant transcription for the piano of this Quadrille music.
Les Huguenots (The Huguenots) was first performed at the Paris Opéra on February 29, 1836, the year it was completed; the libretto was by Eugène Scribe and Émile Deschamps. In 16th century Touraine and Paris, Raoul, a Huguenot nobleman, has saved the life of Valentine, daughter of the Catholic leader, St. Bris. She falls in love with Raoul, but the latter repudiates her, believing her to be the mistress of Count de Nevers. When he discovers he has been mistaken, Raoul risks his life to see her. During this visit he overhears a Catholic plot to massacre the Huguenots. After Raoul and Valentine get married, they are both murdered in the massacre—Valentine by her own father.
The Overture to Les Huguenots is built almost entirely from the melody of the famous Lutheran chorale, Ein’ feste Burg, which in the opera itself served as the musical symbol for militant Protestantism. The outstanding individual excerpts from the opera include Raoul’s beautiful romance from Act 1 describing the woman he has saved, “Plus blanche que la blanche hermine”; the rhapsodic description in the second act of the Touraine countryside by Marguerite de Valois, betrothed to Henry IV of Navarre, “O beau pays de la Touraine”; and in the fourth act the stirring “Benediction of the Swords,” (“Gloire au grand Dieu vengeur”) with which the Catholics are blessed by three monks on the eve of their holy war against the Huguenots.
The exciting Torch Dance, No. 1, in B-flat is not from one of Meyerbeer’s operas. It was written in 1846 for the wedding of the King of Bavaria, and originally was scored for brass band. It is now most frequently heard in orchestral adaptations. Meyerbeer subsequently wrote two other Torch Dances: the second in 1850 for the wedding of Princess Charlotte of Prussia, and the third in 1853 for the wedding of Princess Anne of Prussia.