page_title: Giacomo Meyerbeer
section_title: Reevaluation
hierarchical_section_title: Giacomo Meyerbeer / Reception / Reevaluation
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Berliner Gedenktafel, Giacomo Meyerbeer, Pariser Platz 6a, Berlin-Mitte, Deutschland English: Berlin memorial plaque, Giacomo Meyerbeer, Pariser Platz 6a, Berlin-Mitte, Germany
context_page_description: Giacomo Meyerbeer was a German opera composer of Jewish birth, "the most frequently performed opera composer during the nineteenth century, linking Mozart and Wagner". With his 1831 opera Robert le diable and its successors, he gave the genre of grand opera 'decisive character'. Meyerbeer's grand opera style was achieved by his merging of German orchestra style with Italian vocal tradition. These were employed in the context of sensational and melodramatic libretti created by Eugène Scribe and were enhanced by the up-to-date theatre technology of the Paris Opéra. They set a standard which helped to maintain Paris as the opera capital of the nineteenth century.
  Born to a very wealthy Berlin family, Meyerbeer began his musical career as a pianist but soon decided to devote himself to opera, spending several years in Italy studying and composing. His 1824 opera Il crociato in Egitto was the first to bring him Europe-wide reputation, but it was Robert le diable which raised his status to great celebrity.
context_section_description: Meyerbeer's costly operas, requiring grand casts of leading singers, were gradually dropped from the repertoire in the early 20th century. They were banned in Germany from 1933, and subsequently in subject countries, by the Nazi regime because the composer was Jewish, and this was a major factor in their further disappearance from the repertory.
  One of the first serious post-war studies of Meyerbeer and grand opera was Crosten's 1948 book Grand Opera: An Art and a Business which laid out the themes and standards for much subsequent research. A major contribution to revival of interest in Meyerbeer was the work of the scholar Heinz Becker, leading to the complete publication, between 1960 and 2006, of Meyerbeer's complete diaries and correspondence in German, which are an important source for musical history of the era. The English scholar Robert Letellier has translated the diaries and undertaken a wide range of Meyerbeer studies. The establishment of a 'Meyerbeer Fan Club' in America also stimulated interest.
  Most importantly the operas themselves have been revived and recorded, although despite the efforts of such champions as Dame Joan Sutherland, who took part in performances of, and recorded, Les Huguenots, they have yet to achieve anything like the huge popular following they attracted during their creator's lifetime. Recordings are now available of all the operas from Il crociato onwards, for many of the earlier Italian operas, and for other pieces including his songs and the incidental music for Struensee.
  Amongst reasons often adduced for the dearth of productions in the 20th century were the scale of Meyerbeer's more ambitious works and the cost of mounting them, as well as the alleged lack of virtuoso singers capable of doing justice to Meyerbeer's demanding music. However, successful productions of some of the major operas at relatively small centres such as Strasbourg (L'Africaine, 2004) and Metz (Les Huguenots, 2004) showed that this conventional wisdom can be challenged. Since then, there have been highly successful new productions of Les Huguenots at major opera houses in France, Belgium and Germany. The Paris Opera opened a new production of Les Huguenots in September 2018, the first time since 1936 for the opera to be performed there. In December 2012, the Royal Opera House in London premiered its first performance of Robert le diable in 120 years. In 2013, Meyerbeer's original version of L'Africaine in a new critical edition by Jürgen Schläder was performed by Chemnitz Opera under the original title Vasco de Gama. The production was a success with audiences and critics and won the poll of German critics award presented by Opernwelt magazine annually as "Rediscovery of the year" in 2013. The critical edition was also used for a high-profile new production at the Deutsche Oper Berlin in October 2015. From 2015 onwards, new productions of Le prophète began to appear at some European opera houses.
  On 9 September 2013 a plaque to mark Meyerbeer's last residence was put up at Pariser Platz 6a, Berlin.
caption: Berlin memorial plaque, Pariser Platz 6a, Berlin-Mitte, Germany
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