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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
Meyerbeer's art "including not just his famous French operas, but
also his German and Italian ones"placing them in the context of his
entire dramatic oeuvre, including his ballets, oratorios, cantatas
and incidental music. From Meyerbeer's 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
composer's life and artistic development. Each section unfolds a
brief history of the work's 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 essential"often
challenging"philosophical 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.
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
Meyerbeer's art "including not just his famous French operas, but
also his German and Italian ones"placing them in the context of his
entire dramatic oeuvre, including his ballets, oratorios, cantatas
and incidental music. From Meyerbeer's 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
composer's life and artistic development. Each section unfolds a
brief history of the work's 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 essential"often
challenging"philosophical 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.
Daniel-Francois-Esprit Auber (1782-1871) was long considered one of
the most typically French as well as one of the most successful of
the opera composers of the 19th century. Although musically gifted,
he initially chose commerce as a career, but soon realized that his
future lay in music. He studied under Cherubini, and it was not
long before his opera-comique La Bergere Chateleine (1820), written
at the age of 38, established him as an operatic composer. Perhaps
the greatest turning point in Auber's life was his meeting with the
librettist Eugene Scribe (1791-1861), with whom he developed a long
and illustrious working partnership that only ended with Scribe's
death. Success followed success; works such as Le Macon (1825) and
La Muette de Portici (1828) brought Auber public fame and official
recognition. In 1829 he was appointed a member of the Institut, in
1839 Director of Concerts at Court, in 1842 Director of the
Conservatoire, in 1852 Musical Director of the Imperial Chapel, and
in 1861 Grand Officer of the Legion d'Honneur.Auber seems to have
been fated to live in revolutionary times; during his long life no
less than four revolutions took place in France (1789, 1830, 1848,
1870). Auber's famous historical grand opera La Muette de Portici
(also known by its hero's name as Masaniello) is perhaps
unsurprisingly based on revolution, depicting the 1647 Neapolitan
uprising against Spanish rule. It is a key work in operatic
history, and has a revolutionary history itself: it was a
performance of this work in Brussels in 1830 that helped spark the
revolution that led to the separation of Belgium from Holland. It
was a revolution that hastened Auber's death at the old age of 89.
He died on 12 May 1871 as a result of a long illness aggravated by
the privations and dangers of the Siege of Paris. He had refused to
leave the city he had always loved, even after his house had been
set on fire by the petroleurs et petroleuses. In a twist of fate, a
mark had been placed on the house of the composer of Masaniello,
the very voice of Romantic liberty!Auber's overtures were once
instantly recognizable, favourites of the light Classical
repertoire. His gracious melodies and dance rhythms had a huge
influence, both on piano and instrumental music, and on the genre
of Romantic comic opera, especially in Germany. Musical tastes and
fashions have changed, and contemporary audiences are more
accustomed to the heavier fare of verismo, Wagnerian
transcendentalism, and twentieth-century experimentalism. The
operas themselves, apart from Fra Diavolo (1830), are seldom
performed, yet Auber's elegant, delicate and restrained art remains
as appealing to the discerning listener as ever it was.Zerline, an
opera in three acts with libretto by Eugene Scribe, was first
performed at the Academie nationale de musique (Salle de la rue Le
Peletier) on 16 May 1851. The scene is set in Palermo, during the
Restoration. The Prince of Roccanera, married to the sister of the
King, has a supposed niece, Gemma. She is really his daughter by
Zerline, an orange-seller. The latter was abducted by pirates, and
having returned to Palermo after many trials, now meets her
daughter, assuming the role of her aunt. She learns that Gemma
loves a young naval officer, Rodolphe, but that the Prince's wife
wishes Gemma to marry the King's cousin, much against the girl's
wishes. In the third act, Zerline, already alerted to an intrigue
compromising to the two young lovers, is able to safeguard their
integrity and bring about their union.The action is better suited
to a vaudeville than an opera, and the scenario has little innate
interest. The role of Zerline was devised especially for the great
contralto Marietta Alboni (1823-94), the first role she created.
The B-flat major overture immediately establishes the family nature
of the drama, with its parable of past sins, social disparity and
all-conquering maternal love.There is allusion to the Sicilian
setting in the two opening choruses of act 1 which are dominated by
barcarolle rhythms in establishing the couleur locale. Alboni's
magnificent talent added great value to the light music written by
Auber for this slight canvas. The work consequently contains many
pieces of a purely virtuoso nature. Among them are the grand air
d'entree "O Palerme! o Sicile!", the thematically central
canzonetta "Achetez mes belles oranges", and the duet for soprano
and contralto "Quel trouble en mon ame" in act 1. It is as though
the Italian setting of the story and the Italian origins of the
prima donna caused Auber to look to his early love for Rossini, and
his enduring attachment to Italian musical forms and local colour
(as in Fiorella, La Muette de Portici, Fra Diavolo, Acteon, La
Sirene, Zanetta and Haydee).The vocal part of Zerline is a
conscious re-creation of the old Rossini mode, and her various
solos are written in the style of the virtuoso contralto of the
opera seria, obviously with a contemporary Gallic fleetness all
Auber's own. The Grand Air demonstrates all the features.The
original cast was: Merly (Roccanera); Mlle Marietta Alboni
(Zerline); Mlle Maria-Dolores-Benedicta-Josephine Nau (Gemma);
Aimes (Rodolphe); Mlle Dameron (the Princess of Roccanera); and
Lyons (the Marquis of Bettura). The work was only performed 14
times in Paris, with no reprise. It was translated into Italian,
and produced in Brussels (in French) and London (in Italian).
The integrity of the human being made in the image and likeness of
God (Genesis 1:26) has been a challenge confronting not just the
theologian, but great rulers, politicians, reformers, scientists,
poets, artists, composers and novelists over centuries. The
Orthodox Tradition might note that our human condition in time and
space is shaped and challenged by this journey from likeness to
image. Biblically we journey to see the face of God. Less
theologically, the human condition is shaped by the tensions and
contradictions as we journey to seek afreedom'. Paradigms of
Freedom explores, in the context of the unfolding of modern
history, how this challenge has been compounded and enriched by the
people and institutions who have sought to find and promote the
concept of freedom (and issues of personal liberty) in the face of
contrary or oppressive circumstances and systems. Importantly, it
will examine the contribution of the artist to various models of
freedom, some of which may be identified as vectors of
transcendence; when image becomes likeness. The nature of human
society, the sense of social harmony and paternalistic control that
characterized society for centuries, and especially the emergence
of Western culture, began to crumble in the fourteenth century with
the cataclysmic onslaught of the Black Death; the challenge to the
monolithic power of the Church and the nature of feudalism; the
growth of new philosophical and political theories; and overall
crumbling of authority. In the fifteenth century new developments
like the invention of printing; the standardization of modern
languages; and the global expansion of exploration, mercantilism
and colonization presented unprecedented horizons of growth and
challenges to the place and meaning of humanity in the world. These
challenges are embodied in the Renaissance and Reformation, where
the very foundations of belief and knowledge were questioned in new
processes of discovery in both the world and the cosmos. The nature
of freedom to search, to question and to discover new things
brought about political and intellectual developments in an
ever-expanding series of movements and interrogations. Moved by the
annals of the times, individuals have sought to understand and
perpetuate the heroic struggles through their own creative power.
This in turn can draw us to share in those lost or sorrowful times,
and reflect on the sacrifice and vision of those who have been
prepared to witness fearlessly to the indomitable spirit of
mankind, and his slow but inexorable movement or journey into the
light. This exposition will examine various types/paradigms that
have proposed and embodied concepts of freedom. These have tried,
and often succeeded, in serving as vectors of transcendence,
meditating on and mediating human aspiration. Such reflective
movements of mind and heart are embodied both contemporaneously and
retrospectively in various historical movements, political gestures
and artistic creativity that have provoked thoughts on human
liberty: political actions, decrees, philosophy, books, pictorial
art, novels, poetry, theatre, opera and film. Representatives and
examples (in words and imagery) of all these modes are exemplified
in the chapters that explore certain iconic movements and
personalities in some of the key historical and social events of
the past six centuries. The process is of necessity selective.
Religious conflict, freedom of thought and denomination, the wars
fought over faith and control of the land, the desire for liberty
of choice, challenging new discoveries in science and geography,
cosmology, colonialism and slavery, Enlightenment, revolution and
the search for national identity and independenceathese are all
areas that have absorbed human thought, knowledge and aspiration,
and resulted in inevitable artistic reflection. This is not a
history but a consideration of mankind's search to be free, and how
this striving is embodied in the poetry of liberation.
Cesare Pugni was born in Genoa on 31 May 1802, and studied in Milan
from 1815 to 1822, with Antonio Rollo and Bonifazio Asioli. He
became a cymbalist in the theatre orchestra, and on the death of
Vincenzo Lavigna, was appointed musical director. He later moved to
Paris where he became director of the Paganini Institute and met
the great choreographers of the time. He started an artistic
collaboration that was to prove one of the most productive in the
history of ballet-working closely with Jules Perrot (1810-1892),
first in Paris, then in London. Here Pugni presented some of the
most renowned ballets of the 19th century, such as Esmeralda (1844)
and the Pas de Quatre (1845), which still find their place in some
modern repertories. He also worked with Arthur Saint-Leon
(1821-1870), Paolo Taglioni (1808-1884), Marius Petipa (1818-1910),
and some of the greatest dancers of the century. Pugni followed
Perrot to Russia and became official composer of the Imperial
theatres in St Petersburg where he composed new ballets, notably
Doch' Faraona (Pharaoh's Daughter) (1862) and Koniok Gorbunok (The
Little Humpbacked Horse) (1862). His most famous collaboration,
with Marius Petipa, dominated these years, lasting until the
composer's death on 26 January 1870. Pugni is remarkable for his
enormous output of some 300 ballets (either original compositions
or in arrangements). Arthur Saint-Leon, famous for Coppelia with
Leo Delibes (1870), created The Little Humpbacked Horse to the
music of Cesare Pugni for the Imperial Ballet (today the Maryinsky
Ballet). The story of Koniok Gorbunok is based on the popular
fairy-tale by Petr Yershov (1834), and tells of the spectacular
deeds of Ivanushka with the help of the magical Little Humpbacked
Horse. The scenario is notable for its humour as well as its
fantasy. The ballet is of particular interest as being the first to
be based on themes from Russian folklore, a particular interest of
Saint-Leon, who chose the subject and the source, and devised the
scenario himself. The first performance was on 13 December 1864 at
the Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre in St. Petersburg. The Emperor
Alexander II attended the premiere, a great and enduring success.
Marius Petipa revived the ballet in 1895 as The Tsar-Maiden for the
dancer Pierina Legnani. The work lived on for many years in the
repertory of the Imperial Ballet (given in St Petersburg over 200
times), a success continued in Soviet times at the Kirov Ballet,
and also the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow in a version by Alexander
Gorsky (1901). Alexander Radunsky choreographed his own version of
this ballet to a score by Rodion Shchedrin for the Bolshoi Ballet
in 1960, a version of which was filmed with Maya Plisetskaya as the
Tsar-Maiden and Vladimir Vasiliev as Ivanushka. In 2009 Alexei
Ratmansky choreographed a new version for the Maryinsky Ballet,
also using Shchedrin's score. A reconstruction of Saint-Leon's
original was filmed in 1989 for Russian television with graduates
from the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet in the lead roles. The
film included narrated sections and illustrations from a popular
1964 Russian edition of Yershov's book.
Daniel-Francois-Esprit Auber (Caen 29 January 1782- Paris 12/13 May
1871) is primarily remembered as one of the great masters of
opera-comique, but also played a very important role in the
development of Romantic ballet through the long danced interludes
and divertissements in his grand operas La Muette de Portici, Le
Dieu et la Bayadere, Gustave III, ou Le Bal masque, Le Lac des
fees, L'Enfant prodigue, Zerline, and the opera-ballet version of
Le Cheval de bronze. Auber also adapted music of various of his
operas to create the score of the full-length ballet Marco Spada;
it is quite different from his own opera on the subject.
Additionally, several choreographers have used Auber's music for
their ballets, among them Frederick Ashton (Les Rendezvous, 1937),
Victor Gsovsky (Grand Pas Classique, 1949) and Lew Christensen
(Divertissement d'Auber, 1959).La Muette de Portici (1828),
choreographed by Jean-Pierre Aumer, is set against the Neapolitan
uprising of 1647, and was performed 500 times in Paris alone
between 1828 and 1880. The opera provides one of the few serious
subjects the composer tackled, and one which critics found to have
a persuasive dramatic content. An unusual aspect of the work is
that the main character, a mute girl, is performed by a mime or a
ballerina. The role of ballet in La Muette is important in setting
the local scene, using dance episodes, whether courtly, and
therefore Spanish-as in the guarucha and bolero in act 1, or
popular, and therefore Neapolitan-as in the act 3 tarantella. Dance
is also innate to the dramatic situation in the extended mime
sequences for the mute heroine each with its own specially crafted
music and character. The music responds to, and reflects, the vivid
and imposing scenic effects (based on historical and pictorial
research by the great stage designers and painters Ciceri and
Daguerre). Le Dieu et la Bayadere (1830), set in India, was
choreographed by Filippo Taglioni. Eugene Scribe, not only one of
the most influential of opera librettists, but also a leading
figure in the history of ballet, wrote the scenario for the danced
part, which was fairly long and of artistic merit. In the ballet
scenes of the opera, the choreographer, one of the most important
exponents of dance in the Romantic period, was already
experimenting with the ideas and style that were to characterize
the creations of his prime, and of the Romantic ballet as a whole:
an exotic fairy tale subject (often pseudo-Medieval or pastoral),
and strange love affairs with supernatural beings, in the
theatrical, musical and literary taste of the period. Above all,
the Romantic ballet focused on the idealization of the ballerina,
floating on the tips of her toes, a figure of ethereal lyricism.
All the ballets by Filippo Taglioni were designed to display his
daughter Marie's luminous artistic personality. The heavily
mime-oriented role of the bayadere Zoloe was one of Marie
Taglioni's createst triumphs. Gustave III (1833), based on the
assassination of King Gustavus of Sweden in 1792, and also
choreographed by Filippo Taglioni, was heavily influenced by the
impact of the production of Robert le Diable, which saw a
particular emphasis placed on sets and stage effects. The grand and
historical nature of this opera is powerfully underscored by the
two intercalated ballets. The first divertissement comes as early
as act 1, and is in the nature of a grand historical pageant based
on the life of Gustavus Vasa (1523-60), founder of the present
Swedish state, before he gained the crown. There are two dances
illustrating the prince's leadership of the populace of Dalecarlia
on the campaign to gain freedom from Denmark. The second
divertissement is the legendary masked ball of the title at which
the king was assassinated in 1792. The spectacle provided by the
Opera was sensational: the stage was illumined by 1600 candles in
crystal chandeliers, and 300 dancers took part, all dressed in
different costumes, and with 100 dancing the final galop. There are
six numbers: three airs de danse (Allemande, Pas de folies,
Menuet), two marches, and the famous final galop. Much time in Le
Lac des fees, a tale of love between a human and a supernatural
being, choreographed by Jean Coralli, is taken in elaborating the
central depiction of popular festivity. Indeed, the requirements of
grand-opera are realized with an original twist in the big act 3
depiction of the Medieval Epiphany celebrations, with its attempt
at recreating the variety of genre and mood. There is a detailed
description of the procession through the streets of Cologne,
organized by the Medieval guilds, each preceded by its own
standard, with choruses. It unfolds in several movements:-the
chorus of students "Vive la jeunesse", the Fete des Rois with its
Chant de Noel, the whole culminating in a big ballet sequence of
four dances: 1) Valse des Etudiants, 2) Pas de Bacchus et Erigone,
3) Styrienne, and 4) Bacchanale. Scribe's stage directions provide
vivid details and combine historically informed spectacle,
pantomime and dance into a single artistic conception.L'Enfant
prodigue (1850), based on the Biblical parable of the Prodigal Son,
was choreographed by Arthur Saint-Leon. A special aspect of the
opera is the dance sequence in act 2-No.10 Scene, containing 5 Airs
de ballet, as part of the celebrations of the sacred bull Apis.
There are some further danced passages in the opening part of act
3, where the formal operatic elements of prayer, drinking song,
bacchanal, and lullaby are integrated with singing and dancing into
an artistic whole, once again with reference to the venerable
French tradition of the opera-ballet. Scribe's scenarios show that
the formal dances are either enmeshed in the unfolding of the drama
(act 2), or use dance an integral element in the thematic
ramifications of the plotline (in act 3).Zerline, ou La Corbeille
d'oranges (1851) was choreographed by Joseph Mazilier. Act 3 is
dominated by the great princely festivities featuring eight dance
movements (No. 15 Airs de Ballet and No. 16 Choeur (Valse), a
pallid reminiscence of the great Masked Ball of Gustave in 1832.
Auber reused much of the ballet music from act 3 of Le Lac des fees
in this elaborate semi-allegorical masque that employs a variety of
forms and fuses various types of danced entertainment, from
classical pas de deux and formal ball through national dance,
vaudeville and children's routines to carnival.Marco Spada, ou La
Fille du bandit (1857) was choreographed by Joseph Mazilier.
Scribe's libretto for the opera-comique Marco Spada which had been
produced at the Opera-Comique in December 1852 with Auber's music,
met the fundamental requirement of having two important female
characters, and provided Scribe with the right opportunity to adapt
his story to a scenario for dancing. So the opera-comique was
transformed into a ballet-Auber's only full length one. The music
was not an adaptation of the opera, but rather a composite score
made up of the most striking numbers from several of Auber's works:
Le Concert a la cour, Fiorella, La Fiancee, Fra Diavolo, Le Lac des
fees, L'Ambassadrice, Les Diamants de la couronne, La Barcarolle,
Zerline and L'Enfant prodigue. The original scenario required
elaborate decor and stage machinery, which was a factor in this
later revival of the work at the Academie de musique on 21
September1857. In 1857 Auber reworked the score of the
opera-comique Le Cheval de bronze as an opera-ballet in four acts,
adding recitatives, and extra ballet and ensemble numbers. The
choreography was by Lucien Petipa. The divertissements consisted of
1) a seven-movement Pas de quatre in act 12) a four-movement Danse
in act 33) and five-movement Pas de deux in act 4.This version of
the opera has never been published.The 20th century saw Auber's
music used for three significant ballet arrangements.Les Rendezvous
is an abstract ballet created in 1933 with choreography by
Frederick Ashton, the first major ballet created by Ashton for the
Vic Wells company. It was first performed on Tuesday, December 5th,
1933, by the Vic Wells Ballet at Sadler's Wells Theatre. Premiered
in Paris in the year 1949, Grand Pas Classique by Russian
choreographer and ballet master Victor Gsovsky (1902 74) is a
homage to classical dance. Based on musical extracts from the
three-act ballet Marco Spada (1857), published by the composer as
an offshoot of his opera by the same name, this pas de deux is a
masterpiece of exquisite virtuosity. Divertissement d'Auber is set
to excerpts from Auber's four most famous and dazzling operatic
overtures. It is quicksilver, joyous music that inspired Lew
Christensen's most brilliant and effervescent choreographic style.
The work showcases the technique of classical ballet at its peak,
with the form and movement of the choreography running the gamut of
the dancer's virtuoso vocabulary. Divertissement d'Auber is a
staple of Christensen's canon.
For a period of close to half a century, French grand opera, 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
Prophete 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 Prophete was once one of the most
famous of operas, performed over 500 times at the Paris Opera, 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 Munster (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.
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