Author: Robert Ignatius Letellier
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527527182
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 437
Book Description
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.
Meyerbeer’s Le Prophète
Author: Robert Ignatius Letellier
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527527182
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 437
Book Description
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.
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527527182
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 437
Book Description
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.
The Operas of Giacomo Meyerbeer
Author: Robert Ignatius Letellier
Publisher: Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press
ISBN: 9780838640937
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 372
Book Description
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.
Publisher: Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press
ISBN: 9780838640937
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 372
Book Description
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.
The Prophet
Author: Giacomo Meyerbeer
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Operas
Languages : en
Pages : 58
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Operas
Languages : en
Pages : 58
Book Description
Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots
Author: Robert Ignatius Letellier
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443860840
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 308
Book Description
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.
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443860840
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 308
Book Description
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.
The Huguenots
Author: Giacomo Meyerbeer
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Operas
Languages : en
Pages : 47
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Operas
Languages : en
Pages : 47
Book Description
The Cambridge Companion to Grand Opera
Author: David Charlton
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139825895
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 524
Book Description
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.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139825895
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 524
Book Description
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.
Giacomo Meyerbeer: The Deliberately Forgotten Composer
Author: David Faiman
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789657023150
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 256
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789657023150
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 256
Book Description
Le prophète; a lyric drama, the music by G. Meyerbeer; the libretto tr. by M. Maggioni. As represented at the Royal Italian opera, Covent Garden
Author: Augustin Eugène Scribe
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 118
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 118
Book Description
The Urbanization of Opera
Author: Anselm Gerhard
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226288574
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 540
Book Description
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?
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226288574
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 540
Book Description
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?
The Diaries of Giacomo Meyerbeer: The last years, 1857-1864
Author: Giacomo Meyerbeer
Publisher: Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press
ISBN: 9780838638453
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 732
Book Description
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.
Publisher: Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press
ISBN: 9780838638453
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 732
Book Description
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.