Download or read book The Meyerbeer Libretti written by Giacomo Meyerbeer and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2008 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Giacomo Meyerbeer, one of the most important and influential opera composers of the nineteenth century, enjoyed a fame during his lifetime hardly rivalled by any of his contemporaries. This ten volume set provides in one collection all the operatic texts set by Meyerbeer in his career. The texts offer the most complete versions available. Each libretto is translated into modern English by Richard Arsenty; and each work is introduced by Robert Letellier. In this comprehensive edition of Meyerbeer's libretti, the original text and its translation are placed on facing pages for ease of use. The eleventh volume presents the fourth of Meyerbeerâ (TM)s grands opÃ(c)ras, and his final work. By 1860 long-imposed labor had started to tell upon the composerâ (TM)s health: he knew that he must concentrate on the â oenavigator projectâ which he had started twenty years earlier if he intended to finish it. Meyerbeer died on 2 May 1864, the day after the completion of the copying of the full score of this his last opera, Vasco da Gama. Minna Meyerbeer and CÃ(c)sar-Victor Perrin, the director of the OpÃ(c)ra, entrusted the editing of a performing edition to the famous Belgian musicologist François-Joseph FÃ(c)tis, while the libretto was revised by MÃ(c)lesville. The original title of Lâ (TM)Africaine was restored out of deference to public expectation. Much of the music and action was suppressed, in spite of the strain this inflicted on the internal logic of the story. While L'Africaine is not lacking in the grandeur of statement and stirring climaxes for which the composer was so famous, there is a new intimacy, a new intensity of melancholic lyricism. Like its famous predecessors, it is basically an historical work, derived from the period of sixteenth-century Renaissance. The account of Vasco da Gama's voyage of discovery around the Cape of Good Hope and conquest of Calicut (1497-98) is subjected to a fictional treatment that raises many interesting issues. The framework is historical, but most of the characters and course of action are not; in fact the end of the opera, in the suicide of the heroine, suddenly leaves the terra firma of reality, and transports us into the mystical realms of the spirit. It is this mixture of modes that is central to the dramaturgy of L'Africaine, a confusion of history and fairytale, ancient certainties and challenging discoveries, in the creation of a new mythology. There is also originality in formal developments, with the great tenor scene in act 4 providing a new malleability in handling the constraints of shape and genre: recitative, arioso and cabaletta have a fluent integration in trying to explore the text more pointedly. Lâ (TM)Africaine was produced on 28 April 1865, a great posthumous tribute to its famous creators. The Ship Scene, the exotic Indian act, and the Scene of the Manchineel Tree exerted a fascination on audiences, and elicited new praise. The work full of melodic beauty and rapturous lyricism, began a triumphal progress through the world, beginning with the big stages of London and Berlin.

Download or read book Meyerbeer s Le Proph te written by Robert Ignatius Letellier and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2019-01-29 with total page 437 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Giacomo Meyerbeer Le Prophete written by Matthias Brzoska and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 678 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Le Proph te written by Robert Ignatius Letellier and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2008-10-01 with total page 880 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Le Prophète is the second panel of Meyerbeer’s Reformation diptych, his darkest and most mysterious opera. It explores issues of power and religion, fanaticism and faith, betrayal and trust, the demonic forces of history and the witness of little people caught up in them—the ultimate and enduring sacrificial power of love. In some ways it is almost like a political pamphlet or religious tract, and its oppressive but fascinating world can cast a compulsive spell. The plot is based on the revolt of the Westphalian Anabaptists under the leadership of the Leyden tailor Johann Bockholdt in 1537-38. Meyerbeer, as usual, studied the historical period carefully, and the opera is especially remarkable for its vivid human portraiture, its psychological realism mixed with religious mysticism, prophecy, dreams, unconscious promptings, telepathy, aspiration, conversion, rich in mythical resonance. The composer created a sustained atmosphere of menace and gloom by his dark orchestral colouring. This is contrasted with the pastoral escapism and orchestral brilliance of the famous Skaters’ Ballet, a contersign to the actions of cruelty and betrayal that characterize the action. The draft of a letter by Scribe of 23 April 1836 gives the first clue to a the new opera and its theme: the original title of Les Anabaptistes. However, it was held back in favour of another new project, L’Africaine (1865), for which a contract was signed, but dissatisfaction with the libretto, as well as the vocal difficulties of Marie-Cornélie Falcon meant that in the summer of 1838 Meyerbeer decided to give Le Prophète immediate attention. Performances planned for the winter season of 1841-42 came to nothing because Meyerbeer could only prepare a provisional score by the stipulated contractual delivery date (27 March 1841). All further efforts by the director of the Opéra, Léon Pillet, to conclude a contract came to nothing because in June 1842 Meyerbeer was appointed Prussian Generalmusikdirektor and was consequently tied to his duties in Berlin most of the time. In December 1843 Meyerbeer further had the opportunity to convince himself that Guilbert Duprez was no longer suitable for the role of Jean. Only on 1 July 1847, with the departure of Pillet, and under the joint new directorship of Nestor Roqueplan and Edmond Duponchel, was contact with the Opéra resumed. Eventually Pauline Viardot-Garcia and Gustave-Hippolyte Roger were chosen for the principal roles. Meyerbeer began a revision of the libretto with Scribe in early 1848 (focusing especially on the psychological nuances in the tripartite relationship between Jean, Fidès and Berthe, while hardly touching the depiction of the Anabaptists and the masses). and in early 1848, Emile Deschamps, who was sworn to secrecy, began putting Meyerbeer’s special requirements into verse. Meyerbeer himself composed new pieces for the opera (while revolution raged on the streets of Paris), and then began a thorough overhaul of the score. In actual history, the "Prophet" was a complete wretch whose profligacy cast a stigma on his sect that deprived it of further political status, Yet his rise from a tailor's bench to the throne of "Zion" and his subsequent execution in the Münster market place are the stuff of drama. Scribe's character is, in his own right, an extremely interesting figure, spiritually speaking: he is a genuine man of faith, but also an imposter who is ruthless but not entirely despicable. The depth of his human dilemma is successfully realized. George Bernard Shaw described him as alive and romantic, and there can be no doubt that the composer succeeded in heightening the effect of the drama by his deepening of the hero's psychology. The heart of the action lies in the mysterious, indeed ambiguous nature of the Prophet, and his relationship with his peasant mother, Fidès. Meyerbeer forged a magnificent maternal role, a deeply interesting fictional character, a pious woman, tenderhearted and yet energetic, seeking to save a son she believes she has lost, drawn through torment and abjection, betrayal and scandal, to the exercise of supreme forgiveness and ecstatic self-sacrifice. The composer achieved his master portrait here, and Fides was the progenitor of a line of operatic mothers who are among the noblest conceptions of the lyric stage. Le Prophète is powerful in other ways. The psychology of mass indoctrination is explored. The three Anabaptists are interesting in that they do not seem to have individual personalities, they speak as one person, something psychologically very accurate; true religion enables individuals, even in a community, to develop to the fullest and best of their potentiality; sects seek to stamp out individuality and replace it with a controlling idea. This notion really comes over in the score. The opera was another worldwide success. The beauty of the Breughelesque recreation of sixteenth century Netherlandish scenery and costumes, as well as the glory of the Cathedral Scene, constituted nothing less than an apotheosis in the history of theatrical mise en scène. It was performed 573 times in Paris until 1912, and some individual numbers like the famous Coronation March, the Skaters’ Ballet and the two arias of Fides became extremely popular. The high seriousness of the subject, and the dark sublimity of the music, won for this opera a unique regard: “People of my father’s generation would rather have doubted the solar system than the supremacy of Le Prophète over all other operas” (Reynaldo Hahn). The manuscript once again shows how Meyerbeer the pragmatic dramatist had to make many musical _adaptations_ to fit in with the stringent temporal regulations of the Paris Opéra, and the exigencies of his soloists. Jean’s role in act 3 was considerably reduced to conserve the singers’ stamina, as was the full version of Berthe’s suicide in act 5, to save on performing time. Several scenes of real historical interest (like, the requisitioning of young girls for the polygamous Anabaptists in act 4), or dramaturgical importance (the longer form of the Bacchanale in act 5 which develops the Anabaptist treachery against their leader) had to be sacrificed. These scenes, and the dark-hued but brilliantly virtuosic overture, should be restored in future performances.

Download or read book Meyerbeer s Opera Le Proph te written by Giacomo Meyerbeer and published by . This book was released on 1978 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Operas of Giacomo Meyerbeer written by Robert Ignatius Letellier and published by Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book The Diaries of Giacomo Meyerbeer The last years 1857 1864 written by Giacomo Meyerbeer and published by Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 732 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Volume 4 is devoted to the last years (1857-64); while age and declining health saw a waning of the composer's personal optimism. It contains a series of glossaries listing his compositions and the musical and theatrical works he attended throughout his life, as well as a bibliography.

Download or read book The Meyerbeer Libretti written by Richard Arsenty and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2013-02-21 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Giacomo Meyerbeer, one of the most important and influential opera composers of the nineteenth century, enjoyed a fame during his lifetime hardly rivalled by any of his contemporaries. This ten volume set provides in one collection all the operatic texts set by Meyerbeer in his career. The texts offer the most complete versions available. Each libretto is translated into modern English by Richard Arsenty; and each work is introduced by Robert Letellier. In this comprehensive edition of Meyerbeer's libretti, the original text and its translation are placed on facing pages for ease of use. The eleventh volume presents the fourth of Meyerbeer’s grands opéras, and his final work. By 1860 long-imposed labor had started to tell upon the composer’s health: he knew that he must concentrate on the “navigator project” which he had started twenty years earlier if he intended to finish it. Meyerbeer died on 2 May 1864, the day after the completion of the copying of the full score of this his last opera, Vasco da Gama. Minna Meyerbeer and César-Victor Perrin, the director of the Opéra, entrusted the editing of a performing edition to the famous Belgian musicologist François-Joseph Fétis, while the libretto was revised by Mélesville. The original title of L’Africaine was restored out of deference to public expectation. Much of the music and action was suppressed, in spite of the strain this inflicted on the internal logic of the story. While L'Africaine is not lacking in the grandeur of statement and stirring climaxes for which the composer was so famous, there is a new intimacy, a new intensity of melancholic lyricism. Like its famous predecessors, it is basically an historical work, derived from the period of sixteenth-century Renaissance. The account of Vasco da Gama's voyage of discovery around the Cape of Good Hope and conquest of Calicut (1497-98) is subjected to a fictional treatment that raises many interesting issues. The framework is historical, but most of the characters and course of action are not; in fact the end of the opera, in the suicide of the heroine, suddenly leaves the terra firma of reality, and transports us into the mystical realms of the spirit. It is this mixture of modes that is central to the dramaturgy of L'Africaine, a confusion of history and fairytale, ancient certainties and challenging discoveries, in the creation of a new mythology. There is also originality in formal developments, with the great tenor scene in act 4 providing a new malleability in handling the constraints of shape and genre: recitative, arioso and cabaletta have a fluent integration in trying to explore the text more pointedly. L’Africaine was produced on 28 April 1865, a great posthumous tribute to its famous creators. The Ship Scene, the exotic Indian act, and the Scene of the Manchineel Tree exerted a fascination on audiences, and elicited new praise. The work full of melodic beauty and rapturous lyricism, began a triumphal progress through the world, beginning with the big stages of London and Berlin.

Download or read book Giacomo Meyerbeer written by Marco Clemente Pellegrini and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2008-10-01 with total page 610 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Guide has resulted from years of research on the papers and music of Giacomo Meyerbeer, and aims to provide a bibliographical aid and point of reference for further research. The first part presents the private papers connected to the composer and his principal librettist, Eugène Scribe—both archival and printed, with working papers and correspondence, as found in Berlin, Paris and some of the famous libraries of the world. The body of Part 2 draws together all the known resources on Meyerbeer's life and historical reputation—from full scale biographies and entries in reference books, through critical discussions to website resources to records of symposia. The third part provides material about his background with its unique mixture of Jewish and Prussian elements, the powerful role of the city of Berlin in his life and work. The fourth part lists bibliographic material for Meyerbeer's music, looking at his operas, grouped as German, Italian and French, with each individual entry providing a record of the scores available, both modern and historical, the various arrangements made from the operas during the heyday of their popularity, reviews of modern performances, discography, and bibliography of studies and publications pertinent to the wider cultural and historical contexts of the works. The next two sections constitute an extended record of material pertinent to the contemporaries of Meyerbeer. In the fifth section are select bibliographies of composers, authors, artists, performers, politicians, those who played some part in the composer's life, or anyone of significance in his wider contemporary circumstances. This is continued in the sixth part where the cultural and aesthetic elements of the composer's milieu, or life in the theatre during seventy years of the nineteenth century, are listed. The seventh part adds a bibliography of social and historical background, where the incidental issues of Judaism in nineteenth-century Europe, and the wider political, historical and geographical circumstances of Meyerbeer's life, his relentless travelling, and closely recorded experiences in Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, England, and Austria. The eighth section provides a thematic key to this extensive material. Part 9 provides an extended tripartite series of lists of the published scores, arrangements and some special studies of Meyerbeer over the period 1820 to 2005—in alphabetical, chronological and thematic ordering. The last two sections furnish the modern equivalent of this record of Meyerbeer and his compositions, showing in Part 11 the list of performances of his operas since the Second World War, and in Part 12, listing the recordings of the operas, both commercial and private, for the same period. The thirteenth and last section is iconographical, pictures that represent an interesting survey of the popular response to Meyerbeer in the 19th century.

Download or read book The Prussian Years and Le Proph te 1840 1849 written by Giacomo Meyerbeer and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Giacomo Meyerbeer written by Jennifer Jackson and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2011-05-25 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791–1864) was the most successful composer of grand operas in nineteenth-century Paris, whose music continued to be frequently performed worldwide into the following century. Today, recent scholars acknowledge his stature but his operas have become stage rarities. There is normally a gap on shelves in libraries and bookshops between Mendelssohn and Mozart (Messaien and Monteverdi for the better resourced). There is no biography or broad evaluation of Meyerbeer in print in English. This study of the vicissitudes of Meyerbeer’s reputation complements introductions to his works and the volumes of academic essays in English and other European languages. While reputation forming has recently offered several interesting studies, it is rare for a composer to be the subject. This volume will be of interest primarily to opera enthusiasts, and to libraries and musicologists worldwide.

Download or read book Le Proph te written by Giacomo Meyerbeer and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 47 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Giacomo Meyerbeer written by Robert Ignatius Letellier and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2008-10-01 with total page 610 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Giacomo Meyerbeer remains an enigma. Until the First World War he was one of the most famous of all composers. this Reader hopes to reflect something of the immense fame, prestige and love in which this composer was once held, the voices of doubt and dismissal that began to be heard even in his lifetime, and the enduring witness to his fame and worth evinced by those who have continued to believe in him in the face of the encroaching collective disparagement. Since the centenary of his death in 1964, there has been growing rediscovery of his life and re-evaluation of his art. While the revival of his work is not universal, at least a slow but steady process of recovery and exploration has begun.The forty contributions chosen for this Reader follow a chronological course, from the days of Meyerbeer's international acclaim after the premieres of his first two French operas, through the critical discussion of his art that began to take place during the mid-years of the nineteenth century, to the growing hostility induced by the advent of Wagner and his ideological following. The line of enquiry then leads into the dark days after the First World War when critical hostility was at its peak, on to the more reflective mood emerging during the 1950s, to the period of reassessment heralded by the centenary of his death in 1964. Finally, it surveys the critical rediscovery that was initiated by the bicentenary of his birth in 1991, a process that is still developing apace.The Reader also presents a series of portraits of the composer, and some images from his operas, an icongraphical commentary running parallel to the texts.

Download or read book An Introduction to the Dramatic Works of Giacomo Meyerbeer Operas Ballets Cantatas Plays written by Robert Ignatius Letellier and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791-1864) was a great musical dramatist in his own right. The fame of his operas rests on his radical treatment of form, his development of scenic complexes and greater plasticity of structure and melody, his dynamic use of the orchestra, and close attention to all aspects of presentation and production, all of which set new standards in Romantic opera and dramaturgy. This book carries forward the process of rediscovery and reassessment of Meyerbeers art including not just his famous French operas, but also his German and Italian onesplacing them in the context of his entire dramatic oeuvre, including his ballets, oratorios, cantatas and incidental music. From Meyerbeers first stage presentation in 1810 to his great posthumous accolade in 1865, some 24 works mark the unfolding of this life lived for dramatic music. The reputation of the famous four grand operas may well live on in the public consciousness, but the other works remain largely unknown. This book provides an approachable introduction to them. The works have been divided into their generic types for quick reference and helpful association, and placed within the context of the composers life and artistic development. Each section unfolds a brief history of the works origins, an account of the plot, a critical survey of some of its musical characteristics, and a record of its performance history. Robert Letellier examines each work from a dramaturgical view point, including the essentialoften challengingphilosophical and historical elements in the scenarios, and how these concepts were translated musically onto the stage. A series of portraits and stage iconography assist in bringing the works to life.

Download or read book The Urbanization of Opera written by Anselm Gerhard and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1998-08-15 with total page 540 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do so many operas end in suicide, murder, and death? Why do many characters in large-scale operas exhibit neurotic behaviors worthy of psychoanalysis? Why are the legendary grands operas - much celebrated in their time - so seldom performed today?

Download or read book The Metropolitan Opera Guide to Recorded Opera written by Paul Gruber and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1993 with total page 808 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A guide to recordings of operas.

Download or read book Le proph te a lyric drama the music by G Meyerbeer the libretto tr by M Maggioni As represented at the Royal Italian opera Covent Garden written by Augustin Eugène Scribe and published by . This book was released on 1849 with total page 118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: