The last one in this group is Jacques François Halévy (1799–1862), who is chiefly famous for La Juive (The Jewess), a type of historic opera, even though he wrote many in the style of opéra comique. It is still given today, and it was while singing in this opera, at the Metropolitan Opera House that Caruso was stricken with his fatal illness and Martinelli, a few years later was taken ill, and so it is looked upon with superstition by some of the singers.
Meyerbeer Composes Very Grand “Grand Opera”
Next, comes Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791–1864), and he followed the historic style that Spontini had begun. He, though a German, captured the French audiences and is famous chiefly for writing grand scenes, rather than for noble music in grand opera. His name was Jacob Liebmann Beer, but he changed it to Meyerbeer. He was the son of a Jewish banker and had no struggle for money as did so many of the composers. He began as a pianist and was also a pupil of Abbé Vogler. He was unsuccessful in Germany, so went to Italy. After an invitation to hear his opera Il Crociato (The Crusader) performed in Paris, he took up his residence there.
His style was a queer mixture of German counterpoint, Italian melody and French rhythm, and after blotting up all the popular fashions of the day, he gave his Robert le Diable (Robert the Devil), The Huguenots and Le Prophète (The Prophet) with different degrees of success in Paris. Eugène Scribe was chief librettist in this period. Later Meyerbeer’s operas were given in Berlin, with Jenny Lind in the title rôles and he became very famous. Dinorah and L’Africaine (The African Maid) were very popular and are still in the repertory of opera companies. But his style seems insincere and showy according to those who expect more of opera than grand effects, glitter and elaborate scenery. The Huguenots was probably his finest piece of work.
Among other composers in Germany whose names you may come upon in other places are: Heinrich Marschner (1795–1861), Conradin Kreutzer, Lortzing (1801–1851), von Flotow (1812–1883), composer of Stradella and Martha, and Otto Nicolai (1810–1849) who wrote the delightful bit of fluff, The Merry Wives of Windsor.
Later we see the old Singspiel take the form of Comic Opera (not opéra comique) with such Germans as Carl Millocker and von Suppé and Victor Nessler in his Trumpeter of Sakkingen and The Pied Piper of Hamelin, and Johann Strauss, the great Viennese Waltz King, whose “Blue Danube” and other waltzes are so familiar. (Vienna was as famous for the waltz as America is for jazz.)
Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffmann
Another German who went to Paris was Jacques Offenbach (1819–1880) from Cologne, who became more of a Parisian than the Parisians. He was quite a fop and Wagner once called him “the musical Clown” for he was often seen wearing a yellow waist-coat and trousers, sky blue coat, grey gloves, a green hat and he carried a red sun shade. How like an electric sign he must have looked! But withal, he was so popular in Vienna that when Wagner approached the Opera House about his Meistersinger he was told that they were too busy producing Offenbach’s operas to consider his. He was the best box-office attraction of his time, and the managers could not get enough of his works. Offenbach was important because he founded a new kind of light opera, or the operetta, which is light in story, charming and winsome. His chief operas are The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein, La Belle Hélène and his masterpiece The Tales of Hoffmann of which you probably know the often-played Barcarolle. He felt that it was his finest work and was very eager to be present at its first performance at the Opéra Comique in Paris, but before he had finished orchestrating it, he died. When it was given, the following year, it was praised as the work of a genius.
His followers were Planquette, with Chimes of Normandy, Lecocq and his La Fille de Mme. Angot, and Giroflé-Girofla, and Franz von Suppé with Fatinitza, Boccaccio and the Poet and Peasant overture, played at all movie-houses!
In Vienna Johann Strauss with his waltzes, and the most perfect comic opera of its kind, Die Fledermaus (The Bat) still sparkling and delightful, Zigeuner-Baron (Gypsy-Baron), all owe their start in life to Offenbach’s genius. We too, in America, have had the gifted Victor Herbert with his Mlle. Modiste, The Serenade, The Red Mill and many other lovely operettas and Reginald De Koven with Robin Hood. The inimitable pair in England, Sir Arthur Sullivan and his librettist W. S. Gilbert, wrote comic operas that have become classics. (See page [341].)