An Introduction to the Dramatic Works of Giacomo Meyerbeer: Operas, Ballets, Cantatas, Plays - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook An Introduction to the Dramatic Works of Giacomo Meyerbeer: Operas, Ballets, Cantatas, Plays write by Robert Ignatius Letellier. This book was released on 2017-07-05. An Introduction to the Dramatic Works of Giacomo Meyerbeer: Operas, Ballets, Cantatas, Plays available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. 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 artincluding 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
Giacomo Meyerbeer - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Giacomo Meyerbeer write by Jennifer Jackson. This book was released on 2011-05-25. Giacomo Meyerbeer available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. 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.
Giacomo Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Giacomo Meyerbeer write by Robert Ignatius Letellier. This book was released on 2019-01-31. Giacomo Meyerbeer available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Giacomo Meyerbeer was once one of the most famous of all opera composers, enjoying into the twentieth century the same universal admiration and performance as a composer like Puccini does today. Through a series of adverse factors, his reputation was seriously damaged with the resurgence of nationalism and the growing ant-Semitism in France and Germany at the end of the nineteenth century, the propagation of a Wagnerian operatic aesthetic, the decline of the bel canto vocal tradition, and the disfavour manifested towards the heroism of French grand opera. All these factors, and especially the ban on his music in Nazi Germany, meant that Meyerbeer’s reputation was seriously overshadowed in the years after the Second World War. During the 1960s and 1970s, a tentative interest began to manifest itself, and with the advent of the new millennium, a growing rediscovery of his operas has been apparent. Not least in this process has been the recovery of all the composer’s private papers and their scholarly editing. His life and work have been the subject of a growing number of informed studies which have enabled radical reassessment. This volume takes a fresh look at this process of rediscovery by considering the composer in terms of the primary sources (diaries and letters) now available for forming a more complete and detailed biography unclouded by prejudicial or uninformed opinions. The extraordinary nature of Meyerbeer’s Jewish background and the role of this family in Prussian emancipation are also considered. Most importantly, however, his life and works are presented in a critical chronology that is fundamentally based on his own private papers, with testimony (both positive and negative) from many contemporary sources. A detailed iconography is integral to this process, and helps to bring Meyerbeer's story and music more vividly to life.
Meyerbeer’s Le Prophète
Meyerbeer’s Le Prophète - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Meyerbeer’s Le Prophète write by Robert Ignatius Letellier. This book was released on 2019-01-29. Meyerbeer’s Le Prophète available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. 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 Robert le Diable
Meyerbeer’s Robert le Diable - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Meyerbeer’s Robert le Diable write by Robert Ignatius Letellier. This book was released on 2014-03-17. Meyerbeer’s Robert le Diable available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Robert le Diable by Giacomo Meyerbeer is regarded as a musical milestone, a definitive statement in the 19th-century development of French grand opéra from the tragédie lyrique of Lully, Rameau, Gluck and Spontini. The libretto by Eugène Scribe and Germain Delavigne was derived from the medieval legend of “Robert the Devil”. First performed on 21 November 1831 at the Paris Opéra, the work brought Meyerbeer international celebrity. Robert le Diable remains a legend in the annals of opera. The fascinating story reveals a complex imagery and symbolism that touches on the deepest intuitions of human experience and personal development, and exercises an archetypal unconscious appeal akin to the nature of fairy tales. The musical language, richly melodic and theatrically powerful, looks back to Rossini and the traditions of bel canto, and yet forges a new formal pliancy and dramatic urgency. The harmony and orchestration, the melodramatic plot, and overwhelming stage effects (especially the famous act 3 Ballet of the Nuns, a touchstone of dark Romanticism) confirmed Meyerbeer as the leading opera composer of his age. His style fuses German counterpoint, Italian melody, French grandeur, and unprecedented orchestral riches in a unique and overwhelming artistic blend. Robert became one of the greatest successes in the history of opera. In the first two years of its history it was given in 69 different theatres, and was performed 754 times at the Paris Opéra until 1893. This huge success was reflected in more than 160 transcriptions, arrangements, paraphrases and fantasias for the orchestra, military band, dance band, piano and other solo instruments written between 1832 and 1955. After many years of neglect, there is a resurgence of interest in this work with its fascinating appeal. This book is devoted to the story of this exceptional opera. It traces the origins, the première, the performance history, and also considers the special characteristics of both the libretto and the music. One of the most intriguing aspects of Robert le Diable was the nature of the iconography generated by its most famous scenes. Artists and illustrators responded in many different ways to the Gambling Scene, the Scene at the Cross, the Cloister Scene for the legendary Ballet of the Nuns, and the great trio in act 5. All of these are examined in terms of the the many different pictorial and plastic responses they inspired over some 60 years.
