# Giacomo Meyerbeer



## Meyerbeer Smith

5 September 2016 is the 225th birthday of Giacomo Meyerbeer, the most popular and one of the most critically acclaimed opera composers of the nineteenth century.










These days, the grand opéras _Robert le Diable _(1831), _Les Huguenots _(1836), _Le Prophète _(1849) and _Vasco da Gama _(_L'Africaine_) (1865), the opéras comiques _L'Étoile du Nord _(1854) and _Le Pardon de Ploërmel _(_Dinorah_) (1859) are seldom done, but in the nineteenth century they held the stage worldwide.

This is a dramatist whose operas are simultaneously humane operas of ideas _AND _exciting entertainments in the grand manner, with strong situations and an eye for the spectacular (shipwrecks in the Indian Ocean, exploding castles and ballets of undead nuns).

His cosmopolitan style unites Italian bel canto, French rhythm and declamation, and German orchestration, and is capable both of great delicacy and tremendous power.

Verdi thought him a better musical dramatist than Mozart. Ravel preferred him to Wagner. Wagner himself dismissed Meyerbeer's operas as "effects without causes" - but learnt much from them. Liszt thought that Meyerbeer inaugurated a new period of opera, and Hans von Bülow thought him 'a man of genius'. Bizet and Giuseppe Mazzini compared him to Beethoven, Michelangelo and Shakespeare. Goethe wanted him to set _Faust _to music, while Georges Sand and Dumas _fils _thought him the supreme lyrical dramatist.

So happy 225th birthday, Maestro, and may you be as popular in the 21st century as you were in the 19th!

More information:
My own articles - http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2015/Oct/Meyerbeer_article.htm and http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2015/Dec/Meyerbeer_guide.htm

William Pencak - Why We Must Listen to Meyerbeer: in R.I. Letellier, _Giacomo Meyerbeer: A Reader_ (online)

Sieghart Döhring - Giacomo Meyerbeer and the Opera of the 19th Century: http://www.meyerbeer.com./sieghart.htm

Robert Ignatius Letellier - The Thematic Nexus of Religion, Power, Politics and Love in the Operas of Giacomo Meyerbeer: http://www.meyerbeer.com./nexus.htm


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## Pugg

I did placed him in the composer birthday list .


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## schigolch

Indeed, Meyerbeer just drops out of fashion in the 20th century, for whatever reasons. Personally, I don't agree with any "musical" reason for that demotion. I like a lot operas like "Robert le Diable", "Les Huguenots" or "L'Africaine". 

Just to mention also his Italian period, when he wrote some quite interesting pieces such as "Emma di Resburgo" or "Il crociato in Egitto".


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## Meyerbeer Smith

schigolch said:


> Indeed, Meyerbeer just drops out of fashion in the 20th century, for whatever reasons. Personally, I don't agree with any "musical" reason for that demotion. I like a lot operas like "Robert le Diable", "Les Huguenots" or "L'Africaine".
> 
> Just to mention also his Italian period, when he wrote some quite interesting pieces such as "Emma di Resburgo" or "Il crociato in Egitto".


And _Margherita d'Anjou_! The Act I finale is glorious.


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## schigolch




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## Meyerbeer Smith

schigolch said:


>


That's the one!

On the whole, I don't think the Italian operas are as good as the French ones; like Rossini's operas, they're better musically than dramatically - but there's a wealth of good music in them. _Crociato_ alone has "Giovinetto cavalier", the chorus of the arrival of the knights of Rhodes, the Act I finale, the Inno di morte, and the sextet in Act II. _Margherita_ has both the finale and the trio / sextet in Act II, while _L'esule di Granata_ has an astonishing prologue where Meyerbeer experiments with layers of sound.


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## schigolch

Yes, I also prefer the French ones, except for "Il crociato", but as you mentioned, there is a lot of good music in some of those operas too!.


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