Giacomo Meyerbeer Free Sheet Music, Program Notes, Recordings and Biography

The Devil's Triumph: A New Era of Opera

On November 21, 1831, the Paris Opéra unveiled a new work, Robert le diable ("Robert the Devil"), by the German composer Giacomo Meyerbeer. What the audience witnessed that night was unlike anything they had ever seen. The five-act spectacle featured a supernatural plot, massive crowd scenes, and revolutionary stage effects, including innovative gas lighting and a ghostly ballet of risen nuns. The music was a brilliant fusion of German orchestration, Italian melody, and French declamation. The premiere was a sensational, riotous success. It changed the course of opera history, established French grand opera as the dominant genre for the next half-century, and transformed the 40-year-old Meyerbeer from a respected composer into the most famous and powerful musical figure in Europe.

A Berlin Prodigy

Giacomo Meyerbeer was born Jakob Liebmann Beer in 1791 into an immensely wealthy and cultured Jewish family in Berlin. He was a phenomenal child prodigy at the piano, making his public debut at the age of nine. His family provided him with the finest education possible, and he studied composition with respected teachers, including Antonio Salieri in Vienna. His early works were German-language operas that met with only modest success. He was a brilliant musician, but he had not yet found his true voice.

The Italian Apprenticeship

On the advice of Salieri, Meyerbeer traveled to Italy in 1816 to learn the secrets of vocal writing. The Italian opera scene was then completely dominated by the dazzling works of Gioachino Rossini. Meyerbeer was captivated. He "Italianized" his name to Giacomo and spent the next several years composing a series of successful Italian-style operas, mastering the art of writing beautiful, flowing melodies for the human voice. This period was his apprenticeship, where he added the crucial ingredient of Italian lyricism to his solid German technical foundation. Still, he felt a desire to create something grander and more dramatic.

The Conquest of Paris

In 1827, Meyerbeer moved to Paris, the theatrical capital of the world. It was here that he found the collaborator who would help him forge his destiny: the master librettist Eugène Scribe. Together, Meyerbeer and Scribe essentially invented the formula for French grand opera. Their productions were immense, five-act historical spectacles, built on dramatic contrasts. They featured large-scale plots based on major historical events, huge choruses and ensembles, a mandatory and elaborate ballet in the third act, and opportunities for groundbreaking and spectacular stage effects. It was a form of entertainment on an epic, cinematic scale, and Meyerbeer’s music was the engine that drove it.

The Grand Opera Blockbusters

Meyerbeer’s Parisian operas were the international blockbusters of their day, making him the most frequently performed and wealthiest opera composer of the 19th century.

• Robert le diable (1831): This supernatural tale of a knight torn between his demonic father and his virtuous love was the work that launched his fame. Its success was so immense that it is said to have saved the Paris Opéra from bankruptcy.

• Les Huguenots (1836): Often considered Meyerbeer's masterpiece, this opera is set against the violent backdrop of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of 1572, a conflict between French Catholics and Protestants (Huguenots). It is a powerful drama of love and religious intolerance, culminating in one of the most thrilling and moving final acts in opera.

• Le prophète (1849): Another massive success, this work, based on the historical Anabaptist uprising in Münster, is famous for its spectacular Coronation Scene and its innovative ballet on ice skates.

The Wagner Controversy and Final Years

Meyerbeer's influence was enormous. His works were a touchstone for virtually every opera composer of his time, including Verdi and, initially, a young, struggling Richard Wagner. Meyerbeer used his immense power and influence to help the young Wagner secure the premiere of his early opera Rienzi. However, Wagner later turned on his former mentor with vicious, anti-Semitic fury. In his infamous essay Das Judenthum in der Musik ("Jewishness in Music"), Wagner attacked Meyerbeer, denigrating his success and his art. This public assault, driven by a toxic combination of professional jealousy and racist ideology, did lasting damage to Meyerbeer's reputation after his death. Meyerbeer spent his final years working on his last opera, L'Africaine, which was premiered posthumously in 1865.

Legacy: From Fame to Obscurity

Giacomo Meyerbeer died in Paris in 1864, arguably the most famous and successful composer in the world. Yet, within a few decades, his works began to disappear from the stage. Changing musical tastes moved away from his grand theatricality, and the immense cost and scale of his operas made them difficult to produce. The final blow came with the rise of the Nazi party in Germany, where his works, written by a composer of Jewish birth, were banned. For much of the 20th century, he was a historical footnote. In recent decades, however, there has been a significant revival of interest in Meyerbeer's music. He is now recognized again as a composer of immense skill, a master of theatrical effect, and a central figure of the Romantic era whose grand, spectacular works were the very definition of opera for millions of people.

Section 4: References and Further Reading

• Letellier, Robert Ignatius. The Operas of Giacomo Meyerbeer. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2006.

• Huebner, Steven. "Meyerbeer, Giacomo." Grove Music Online. Oxford University Press, 2001.

• Becker, Heinz, and Gudrun Becker. Giacomo Meyerbeer: A Life in Letters. Translated by Mark Violette, Amadeus Press, 1989.

• Conway, David. Jewry in Music: Entry to the Profession from the Enlightenment to Richard Wagner. Cambridge University Press, 2012.