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R.A. Streatfeild - The Opera

R >> R.A. Streatfeild >> The Opera




'Robert le Diable' was an immense success when first produced. The
glitter and tinsel of the story suited Meyerbeer's showy style, and
besides, even when the merely trivial and conventional had been put
aside, there remains a fair proportion of the score which has claims to
dramatic power. The triumph of 'Robert' militated against the success of
'Les Huguenots' (1836), which was at first rather coldly received.
Before long, however, it rivalled the earlier work in popularity, and is
now generally looked upon as Meyerbeer's masterpiece. The libretto
certainly compares favourably with the fatuities of 'Robert le Diable.'

Marguerite de Valois, the beautiful Queen of Navarre, who is anxious to
reconcile the bitterly hostile parties of Catholics and Huguenots,
persuades the Comte de Saint Bris, a prominent Catholic, to allow his
daughter Valentine to marry Raoul de Nangis, a young Huguenot noble.
Valentine is already betrothed to the gallant and amorous Comte de
Nevers, but she pays him a nocturnal visit in his own palace, and
induces him to release her from her engagement. During her interview
with Nevers she is perceived by Raoul, and recognised as a lady whom he
lately rescued from insult and has loved passionately ever since. In his
eyes there is only one possible construction to be put upon her presence
in Nevers' palace, and he hastens to dismiss her from his mind.
Immediately upon his decision comes a message from the Queen bidding him
hasten to her palace in Touraine upon important affairs of state. When
he arrives she unfolds her plan, and he, knowing Valentine only by
sight, not by name, gladly consents. When, in the presence of the
assembled nobles, he recognises in his destined bride the presumed
mistress of Nevers, he casts her from him, and vows to prefer death to
such intolerable disgrace.

The scene of the next act is in the Pre aux Clercs, in the outskirts of
Paris. Valentine, who is to be married that night to Nevers, obtains
leave to pass some hours in prayer in a chapel. While she is there she
overhears the details of a plot devised by Saint Bris for the
assassination of Raoul, in order to avenge the affront put upon himself
and his daughter. Valentine contrives to warn Marcel, Raoul's old
servant, of this, and he assembles his Huguenot comrades hard by, who
rush in at the first clash of steel and join the combat. The fight is
interrupted by the entrance of the Queen. When she finds out who are the
principal combatants, she reproves them sharply and tells Raoul the real
story of Valentine's visit to Nevers. The act ends with the marriage
festivities, while Raoul is torn by an agony of love and remorse.

In the next act Raoul contrives to gain admittance to Nevers' house, and
there has an interview with Valentine. They are interrupted by the
entrance of Saint Bris and his followers, whereupon Valentine conceals
Raoul behind the arras. From his place of concealment he hears Saint
Bris unfold the plan of the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, which is to
be carried out that night. The conspirators swear a solemn oath to
exterminate the Huguenots, and their daggers are consecrated by
attendant priests. Nevers alone refuses to take part in the butchery.
When they all have left, Raoul comes out of his hiding-place, and in
spite of the prayers and protestations of Valentine, leaps from the
window at the sound of the fatal tocsin, and hastens to join his
friends. In the last act, which is rarely performed in England, Raoul
first warns Henry of Navarre and the Huguenot nobles, assembled at the
Hotel de Sens, of the massacre, and then joins the _melee_ in the
streets. Valentine has followed him, and after vainly endeavouring to
make him don the white scarf which is worn that night by all Catholics,
she throws in her lot with his, and dies in his arms, after they have
been solemnly joined in wedlock by the wounded and dying Marcel.

'Les Huguenots' shows Meyerbeer at his best Even Wagner, his bitterest
enemy, admitted the dramatic power of the great duet in the fourth act,
and several other scenes are scarcely inferior to it in sustained
inspiration. The opera is marred as a whole by Meyerbeer's invincible
self-consciousness. He seldom had the courage to give his genius full
play. He never lost sight of his audience, and wrote what he thought
would be effective rather than what he knew was right. Thus his finest
moments are marred by lapses from sincerity into the commonplace
conventionality of the day. Yet the dignity and power of 'Les Huguenots'
are undeniable, and it is unfortunate that its excessive length should
prevent it from ever being heard in its entirety.

In 'Le Prophete' Meyerbeer chose a subject which, if less rich in
dramatic possibility than that of 'Les Huguenots,' has a far deeper
psychological interest. Unfortunately, Scribe, with all his cleverness,
was quite the worst man in the world to deal with the story of John of
Leyden. In the libretto which he constructed for Meyerbeer's benefit the
psychological interest is conspicuous only by its absence, and the
character of the young leader of the Anabaptists is degraded to the
level of the merest puppet. John, an innkeeper of Leyden, loves Bertha,
a village maiden who dwells near Dordrecht. Unfortunately, her liege
lord, the Count of Oberthal, has designs upon the girl himself, and
refuses his consent to the marriage. Bertha escapes from his clutches
and flies to the protection of her lover, but Oberthal secures the
person of Fides, John's old mother, and by threats of putting her to
death, compels him to give up Bertha. Wild with rage against the vice
and lawlessness of the nobles, John joins the ranks of the Anabaptists,
a revolutionary sect pledged to the destruction of the powers that be.
Their leaders recognise him as a prophet promised by Heaven, and he is
installed as their chief. The Anabaptists lay siege to Munster, which
falls into their hands, and in the cathedral John is solemnly proclaimed
the Son of God. During the ceremony he is recognised by Fides, who,
believing him to have been slain by the false prophet, has followed the
army to Munster in hopes of revenge. She rushes forward to claim her
son, but John pretends not to know her. To admit an earthly relationship
would be to prejudice his position with the populace, and he compels her
to confess that she is mistaken. The coronation ends with John's
triumph, while the hapless Fides is carried off to be immured in a
dungeon. John visits her in her cell, and obtains her pardon by
promising to renounce his deceitful splendour and to fly with her. Later
he discovers that a plot against himself has been hatched by some of the
Anabaptist leaders, and he destroys himself and them by blowing up the
palace of Munster. Meyerbeer's music, fine as much of it is, suffers
chiefly from the character of the libretto. The latter is merely a
string of conventionally effective scenes, and the music could hardly
fail to be disjointed and scrappy. Meyerbeer had little or no feeling
for characterisation, so that the opportunities for really dramatic
effect which lay in the character of John of Leyden have been almost
entirely neglected. Once only, in the famous cantique 'Roi du Ciel,' did
the composer catch an echo of the prophetic rapture which animated the
youthful enthusiast. Meyerbeer's besetting sin, his constant search for
the merely effective, is even more pronounced in 'Le Prophete' than in
'Les Huguenots.' The coronation scene has nothing of the large
simplicity necessary for the proper manipulation of a mass of sound. The
canvas is crowded with insignificant and confusing detail, and the
general effect is finicking and invertebrate rather than solid and
dignified.

Meyerbeer was constantly at work upon his last opera, 'L'Africaine,'
from 1838 until 1864, and his death found him still engaged in
retouching the score. It was produced in 1865. With a musician of
Meyerbeer's known eclecticism, it might be supposed that a work of which
the composition extended over so long a period would exhibit the
strangest conglomeration of styles and influences. Curiously enough,
'L'Africaine' is the most consistent of Meyerbeer's works. This is
probably due to the fact that in it the personal element is throughout
outweighed by the picturesque, and the exotic fascination of the story
goes far to cover its defects.

Vasco da Gama, the famous discoverer, is the betrothed lover of a maiden
named Inez, the daughter of Don Diego, a Portuguese grandee. When the
opera opens he is still at sea, and has not been heard of for years. Don
Pedro, the President of the Council, takes advantage of his absence to
press his own suit for the hand of Inez, and obtains the King's sanction
to his marriage on the ground that Vasco must have been lost at sea. At
this moment the long-lost hero returns, accompanied by two swarthy
slaves, Selika and Nelusko, whom he has brought home from a distant isle
in the Indian Ocean. He recounts the wonders of the place, and entreats
the government to send out a pioneer expedition to win an empire across
the sea. His suggestions are rejected, and he himself, through the
machinations of Don Pedro, is cast into prison. There he is tended by
Selika, who loves her gentle captor passionately, and has need of all
her regal authority--for in the distant island she was a queen--to
prevent the jealous Nelusko from slaying him in his sleep. Inez now
comes to the prison to announce to Vasco that she has purchased his
liberty at the price of giving her hand to Don Pedro. In the next act,
Don Pedro, who has stolen a march on Vasco, is on his way to the African
island, taking with him Inez and Selika. The steering of the vessel is
entrusted to Nelusko. Vasco da Gama, who has fitted out a vessel at his
own expense, overtakes Don Pedro in mid-ocean, and generously warns his
rival of the treachery of Nelusko, who is steering the vessel upon the
rocks of his native shore. Don Pedro's only reply is to order Vasco to
be tied to the mast and shot, but before the sentence can be carried out
the vessel strikes upon the rocks, and the aborigines swarm over the
sides. Selika, once more a queen, saves the lives of Vasco and Inez from
the angry natives. In the next act the nuptials of Selika and Vasco are
on the point of being celebrated with great pomp, when the hero, who has
throughout the opera wavered between the two women who love him, finally
makes up his mind in favour of Inez. Selika thereupon magnanimously
despatches them home in Vasco's ship, and poisons herself with the
fragrance of the deadly manchineel tree. The characters of
'L'Africaine,' with the possible exception of Selika and Nelusko, are
the merest shadows, but the music, though less popular as a rule than
that of 'Les Huguenots,' or even 'Le Prophete,' is undoubtedly
Meyerbeer's finest effort. In his old age Meyerbeer seems to have looked
back to the days of his Italian period, and thus, though occasionally
conventional in form, the melodies of 'L'Africaine' have a dignity and
serenity which are rarely present in the scores of his French period.
There is, too, a laudable absence of that ceaseless striving after
effect which mars so much of Meyerbeer's best work.

Besides the great works already discussed, Meyerbeer wrote two works for
the Opera Comique, 'L'Etoile du Nord' and 'Le Pardon de Ploermel.'
Meyerbeer was far too clever a man to undertake anything he could not
carry through successfully, and in these operas he caught the trick of
French opera comique very happily.

'L'Etoile du Nord' deals with the fortunes of Peter the Great, who, when
the opera opens, is working as a shipwright at a dockyard in Finland. He
wins the heart of Catherine, a Cossack maiden, who has taken up her
quarters there as a kind of vivandiere. Catherine is a girl of
remarkable spirit, and after repulsing an incursion of Calmuck Tartars
single-handed, goes off to the wars in the disguise of a recruit, in
order to enable her brother to stay at home and marry Prascovia, the
daughter of the innkeeper. The next act takes place in the Russian camp.
Catherine, whose soldiering has turned out a great success, is told off
to act as sentry outside the tent occupied by two distinguished officers
who have just arrived. To her amazement she recognises them as Peter and
his friend Danilowitz, a former pastry-cook, now raised by the Czar to
the rank of General. Catherine's surprise and pleasure turn to
indignation when she sees her lover consoling himself for her absence
with the charms of a couple of pretty vivandieres, and when her senior
officer reprimands her for eavesdropping, she bestows upon him a sound
box on the ears. For this misdemeanour she is condemned to be shot, but
she contrives to make her escape, first sending a letter to Peter
blaming him for his inconstancy, and putting in his hand the details of
a conspiracy against his person which she has been fortunate enough to
discover. Peter's anguish at the loss of his loved one is accentuated by
the nobility of her conduct. At first it is supposed that Catherine is
dead, but by the exertions of Danilowitz she is at length discovered,
though in a lamentable plight, for her troubles have cost her her
reason. She is restored to sanity by the simple method of reconstructing
the scene of the Finnish dockyard in which she first made Peter's
acquaintance, and peopling it with the familiar forms of the workmen.
Among the latter are Peter and Danilowitz, in their old dresses of
labourer and pastry-cook, and, to crown all, two flutes are produced
upon which Peter and her brother play a tune known to her from
childhood. The last charm proves effectual, and all ends happily.

The lighter parts of 'L'Etoile du Nord' are delightfully arch and
vivacious, and much of the concerted music is gay and brilliant. The
weak point of the opera is to be found in the tendency from which
Meyerbeer was never safe, to drop into mere pretentiousness when he
meant to be most impressive. In some of the choruses in the camp scene
there is a great pretence at elaboration, with very scanty results, and
the closing scena, which is foolish and wearisome, is an unfortunate
concession to the vanity of the prima donna. But on the whole 'L'Etoile
du Nord' is one of Meyerbeer's most attractive works, besides being an
extraordinary example of his inexhaustible versatility.

'Le Pardon de Ploermel,' known in Italy and England as 'Dinorah,' shows
Meyerbeer in a pastoral and idyllic vein. The story is extremely silly
in itself, and most of the incidents take place before the curtain
rises. The overture is a long piece of programme music, which is
supposed to depict the bridal procession of Hoel and Dinorah, two Breton
peasants, to the church where they are to be married. Suddenly a
thunderstorm breaks over their heads and disperses the procession, while
a flash of lightning reduces Dinorah's homestead to ashes. Hoel, in
despair at the ruin of his hopes, betakes himself to the village
sorcerer, who promises to tell him the secret of the hidden treasure of
the local gnomes or Korriganes if he will undergo a year of trial in a
remote part of the country. On hearing that Hoel has abandoned her
Dinorah becomes insane, and spends her time in roving through the woods
with her pet goat in search of her lover. The overture is a picturesque
piece of writing enough, though much of it would be entirely meaningless
without its programme. When the opera opens, Hoel has returned from his
probation in possession of the important secret. His first care is to
find some one to do the dirty work of finding the treasure, for the
oracle has declared that the first man who shall lay hands upon it will
die. His choice falls upon Corentin, a country lout, whom he persuades
to accompany him to the gorge where the treasure lies hidden. Corentin
is not so stupid as he seems, and, suspecting something underhand, he
persuades the mad Dinorah to go down into the ravine in his place.
Dinorah consents, but while she is crossing a rustic bridge, preparatory
to the descent, it is struck by lightning, and she tumbles into the
abyss. She is saved by Hoel in some inexplicable way, and, still more
inexplicably, regains her reason. The music is bright and tuneful, and
the reaper's and hunter's songs (which are introduced for no apparent
reason) are delightful; but the libretto is so impossibly foolish that
the opera has fallen into disrepute, although the brilliant music of the
heroine should make it a favourite role with competent singers.

Meyerbeer was extravagantly praised during his lifetime; he is now as
bitterly decried. The truth seems to lie, as usual, between the two
extremes. He was an unusually clever man, with a strong instinct for the
theatre. He took immense pains with his operas, often rewriting the
entire score; but his efforts were directed less towards ideal
perfection than to what would be most effective, so that there is a
hollowness and a superficiality about his best work which we cannot
ignore, even while we admit the ingenuity of the means employed. His
influence upon modern opera has been extensive. He was the real founder
of the school of melodramatic opera which is now so popular. Violent
contrasts with him do duty for the subtle characterisation of the older
masters. His heroes rant and storm, and his heroines shriek and rave,
but of real feeling, and even of real expression, there is little in his
scores.

The career of Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) was in striking contrast to
that Meyerbeer. While Meyerbeer was earning the plaudits of crowded
theatres throughout the length and breadth of Europe, Berlioz sat alone,
brooding over the vast conceptions to which it taxed even his gigantic
genius to give musical shape. Even now the balance has scarcely been
restored. Though Meyerbeer's popularity is on the wane, the operas of
Berlioz are still known for the most part only to students. Before the
Berlioz cycle at Carlsruhe in 1893, 'La Prise de Troie' had never been
performed on any stage, and though the French master's symphonic works
now enjoy considerable popularity, his dramatic works are still looked
at askance by managers. There is a reason for this other than the
hardness of our hearts. Berlioz was essentially a symphonic writer. He
had little patience with the conventions of the stage, and his attempts
to blend the dramatic and symphonic elements, as in 'Les Troyens,' can
scarcely be termed a success. Yet much may be pardoned for the sake of
the noble music which lies enshrined in his works. 'Benvenuto Cellini'
and 'Beatrice et Benedict,' which were thought too advanced for the
taste of their day, are now perhaps a trifle old-fashioned for our
times. The first is a picturesque story of Rome in Carnival time. The
interest centres in the casting of the sculptor's mighty Perseus, which
wins him the hand of the fair Teresa. The Carnival scenes are gay and
brilliant, but the form of the work belongs to a bygone age, and it is
scarcely possible that a revival of it would meet with wide acceptance.
'Beatrice et Benedict' is a graceful setting of Shakespeare's 'Much Ado
about Nothing.' It is a work of the utmost delicacy and refinement.
Though humour is not absent from the score, the prevailing impression is
one of romantic charm, passing even to melancholy. Very different is the
double drama 'Les Troyens.' Here Berlioz drew his inspiration directly
from Gluck, and the result is a work of large simplicity and austere
grandeur, which it is not too much to hope will some day take its place
in the world's repertory side by side with the masterpieces of Wagner.
The first part, 'La Prise de Troie,' describes the manner in which the
city of Priam fell into the hands of the Greeks. The drama is dominated
by the form of the sad virgin Cassandra. In vain she warns her people of
their doom. They persist in dragging up the wooden horse from the
sea-beach, where it was left by the Greeks. The climax of the last act
is terrific. AEneas, warned by the ghost of Hector of the approaching
doom of Troy, escapes; but the rest of the Trojans fall victims to the
swords of the Greeks in a scene of indescribable carnage and terror.
Cassandra and the Trojan women, driven to take shelter in the temple of
Cybele, slay themselves rather than fall into the hands of their
captors. 'La Prise de Troie' is perhaps epic rather than dramatic, but
as a whole it leaves an impression of severe and spacious grandeur,
which can only be paralleled in the finest inspirations of Gluck. In
the second division of the work, 'Les Troyens a Carthage,' human
interest is paramount. Berlioz was an enthusiastic student of Virgil,
and he follows the tragic tale of the AEneid closely. The appearance of
AEneas at Carthage, the love of Dido, the summons of Mercury, AEneas'
departure and the passion and death of Dido, are depicted in a series of
scenes of such picturesqueness and power, such languor and pathos, as
surely cannot be matched outside the finest pages of Wagner. A time will
certainly come when this great work, informed throughout with a
passionate yearning for the loftiest ideal of art, will receive the
recognition which is its due. Of late indeed there have been signs of a
revival of interest in Berlioz's mighty drama, and the recent
performances of 'Les Troyens' in Paris and Brussels have opened the eyes
of many musicians to its manifold beauties. Some years ago the
experiment was made of adapting Berlioz's cantata, 'La Damnation de
Faust,' for stage purposes. The work is of course hopelessly undramatic,
but the beauty of the music and the opportunities that it affords for
elaborate spectacular effects have combined to win the work a certain
measure of success, especially in Italy where Gounod's 'Faust' has never
won the popularity that it enjoys north of the Alps. 'La Damnation de
Faust' is hardly more than a string of incidents, with only the most
shadowy semblance of connection, but several of the scenes are effective
enough on the stage, notably that in Faust's study with the march of
Hungarian warriors in the distance, the exquisite dance of sylphs and
the ride to the abyss. Nevertheless, when the success of curiosity is
over, the work is hardly likely to retain its place in the repertory.

Unperformed as he was, Berlioz of course could not be expected to found
a school; but Meyerbeer's success soon raised him up a host of
imitators. Halevy (1799-1862) drew his inspiration in part from Herold
and Weber; but 'La Juive,' the work by which he is best known, owes much
to Meyerbeer, whose 'Robert le Diable' had taken the world of music in
Paris by storm a few years before the production of Halevy's work. In
turn Halevy reacted upon Meyerbeer. Many passages in 'Les Huguenots'
reflect the sober dignity of 'La Juive'; indeed, it is too often
forgotten that the production of Halevy's opera preceded its more famous
contemporary by a full year.

The scene of 'La Juive' is laid in Constance, in the fifteenth century.
Leopold, a Prince of the Empire, in the disguise of a young Israelite,
has won the heart of Rachel, the daughter of the rich Jew Eleazar. When
the latter discovers the true nationality of his prospective son-in-law
he forbids him his house, but Rachel consents, like another Jessica, to
fly with her lover. Later she discovers that Leopold is a Prince, and
betrothed to the Princess Eudoxia. Her jealousy breaks forth, and she
accuses him of having seduced her--a crime which in those days was
punishable by death. Rachel, Leopold, and Eleazar are all thrown into
prison. There Rachel relents, and retracts her accusation. Leopold is
accordingly released, but the Jew and his daughter are condemned to be
immersed in a cauldron of boiling oil. There is a rather meaningless
underplot which results in a confession made by Eleazar on the scaffold,
that Rachel is not a Jewess at all, but the daughter of a Cardinal who
has taken a friendly interest in her fortunes throughout the drama.

Halevy's music is characterised by dignity and sobriety, but it rarely
rises to passion. He represents to a certain extent a reaction towards
the pre-Rossinian school of opera, but, to be frank, most of 'La Juive'
is exceedingly long-winded and dull. Besides his serious operas, Halevy
wrote works of a lighter cast, which enjoyed popularity in their time.
But the prince of opera comique at this time was Auber (1782-1871).
Auber began his career as a musician comparatively late in life, but _en
revanche_ age seemed powerless to check his unflagging industry. His
last work, 'Le Reve d'Amour,' was produced in the composer's
eighty-eighth year. Auber is a superficial Rossini. He borrowed from the
Italian master his wit and gaiety; he could not catch an echo of his
tenderness and passion. Auber has never been so popular in England as
abroad, and the only two works of his which are now performed in this
country--'Fra Diavolo' and 'Masaniello'--represent him, curiously
enough, at his best and worst respectively. The scene of 'Fra Diavolo'
is laid at a village inn in Italy. Lord and Lady Rocburg, the
conventional travelling English couple, arrive in great perturbation,
been stopped by brigands and plundered of some of their property. At the
inn they fall in with a distinguished personage calling himself the
Marquis di San Marco, who is none other than the famous brigand chief
Fra Diavolo. He makes violent love to the silly Englishwoman, and soon
obtains her confidence. Meanwhile Lorenzo, the captain of a body of
carabineers, who loves the innkeeper's daughter Zerlina, has hurried off
after the brigands. He comes up with them and kills twenty, besides
getting back Lady Rocburg's stolen jewels. Fra Diavolo is furious at the
loss of his comrades, and vows vengeance on Lorenzo. That night he
conceals himself in Zerlina's room, and, when all is still, admits two
of his followers into the house. Their nocturnal schemes are frustrated
by the return of Lorenzo and his soldiers, who have been out in search
of the brigand chief. Fra Diavolo is discovered, but pretends that
Zerlina has given him an assignation. Lorenzo is furious at this
accusation, and challenges the brigand to a duel. Before this comes off,
however, Fra Diavolo's identity is discovered, and he is captured by
Lorenzo and his band. 'Fra Diavolo' shows Auber in his happiest vein.
The music is gay and tuneful, without dropping into commonplace; the
rhythms are brilliant and varied, and the orchestration neat and
appropriate.

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