It is probable that in 1830 he planned his first distinctively French opera, Robert le Diable, for which the clever librettist Eugène Scribe wrote the book. The first performance of that work, typically a grand romantic opera, on November 22, 1831, aroused unbounded enthusiasm. Yet certain contemporary critics called it ‘the acme of insane fiction’ and spoke of it as ‘the apotheosis of blasphemy, indecency, and absurdity.’ Schumann and Mendelssohn disapproved of it—the latter accused its music of being ‘cold and heartless’—and Spontini, because of professional jealousy, condemned it. Liszt and Berlioz, on the other hand, were full of admiration. There is no doubt that text and music had united to create a tremendous impression. The libretto, in spite of faults, was theatrically effective; the music was pregnant, melodious, sensuously pleasing and rendered dramatic by reason of shrill contrasting orchestral coloring. So striking was the impression it made at the time—though from our present-day standpoint it is decidedly vieux jeu—that its faults passed almost unobserved.
From the standpoint of the ideal, the work is lacking in many respects. First intended for the opéra comique, its remodelling by Scribe and Meyerbeer himself had built up a kind of romantic and symbolic vision around the original comedy. The Robert (loyal, proud, and loving) and Isabella (tender and kind) of the original were the same, but the characters of Bertram and Alice had been elevated, respectively, to the dignity of angels of evil and of good, struggling to obtain possession of Robert’s soul, thus exalting the entire work. The change had given the score a mixed character, somewhat between drama and comedy, making it a romantic opera in the manner of Euryanthe or Oberon. Still, excess of variety in effects, the occasional lack of melodic distinction, and want of character do not affect its forceful expression and dramatic boldness. The influence of Rossini and of Auber, whose Muette de Portici had been given three years before, of Gluck and Weber was apparent in Robert le Diable, yet as a score it was different and in some respects absolutely novel. If Meyerbeer had less creative spontaneity and freshness than Rossini and less ease than Auber, in breadth of musical education he surpassed them both.
In a measure both Spontini and Rossini may be excused if they thought that Meyerbeer, in developing their art tendencies, transformed and distorted them. Spontini, no doubt, looked on him as a huckster who bartered away the sacred mysteries of creative art for the sake of cheap applause. The straightforward Rossini probably thought him a hypocrite. And therein they both wronged him. An eclectic, ‘an art-lover rather than an artist,’ Meyerbeer revelled in the luxury of using every style and attempting every novelty, in order to prove himself master of whatever he undertook. But he was undeniably honest in all that he did, though he lacked that spontaneity which belongs to the artist alone. And in Les Huguenots, his next work, first performed in 1836, five years after Robert, he composed an opera which in gorgeous color, human interest, consistent dramatic treatment and accentuation of individual types, in force and breadth generally, marked a decided advance on its predecessor.
Les Huguenots was not a historical opera in the sense of Tell. In Tell Rossini showed himself as an Italian and a patriot. The Hapsburgs of his hero’s day were the same who, at the time he wrote, oppressed his countrymen. Gessler stood for the imperial governor of Lombardy, his guards for Austrian soldiers; the liberty-loving Swiss he identified with the Lombards and Venetians whose liberties were attacked. But, though the subject of Meyerbeer’s opera is an episode of the ‘Massacre of St. Bartholomew,’ that episode is merely used as a sinister background, against which his warm and living characters move and tell their story. Les Huguenots may be considered Meyerbeer’s most finished and representative score. Not a single element of color and contrast has escaped him. In only two respects did its interest fall short of that awakened by its predecessor. So successful had the composer been in his treatment of the supernatural in Robert that the omission of that element now was regretted; and, more important, the fifth act proved to be an anti-climax. The opera, when given now, usually ends at the fourth act, when Raoul, leaping from the window to his death, leaves Valentine fainting. In psychological truth Les Huguenots is undoubtedly superior to Robert. There is a double interest: that of knowing how the mutual love of Valentine the Catholic and Raoul the Protestant will turn out; and that of the drama in general, against which and not out of which the fate of the Huguenots is developed.
In the third act especially the opera develops a breadth and eloquence maintained to the end. The varied shadings of this picture of Paris, its ensembles, contrasted yet never confounded, constitute, in Berlioz’s words, ‘a magnificent musical tissue.’ Les Huguenots, like Robert, made the tour of the world. And, as Tell was prohibited in Austria, for political reasons, so Meyerbeer’s opera was forbidden in strictly Catholic lands. This did not prevent its performance under such titles as The Guelphs or The Ghibellines at Pisa; a letter to Meyerbeer shows that he refused an arrangement of the libretto entitled The Swedes before Prague!
After Les Huguenots had been produced Meyerbeer spent a number of years in the preparation of his next works, L’Africaine and Le Prophète. Scribe[71] had supplied the librettos for both these works, and both underwent countless revisions and changes at Meyerbeer’s hands. The story of L’Africaine was more than once entirely rewritten. In the meantime the composer had accepted (after Spontini’s withdrawal) the appointment of kapellmeister to the king of Prussia and spent some years in Berlin. Here he composed psalms, sacred cantatas, a secular choral work with living pictures, Una festa nella corte di Ferrara; the first of his four ‘Torchlight Marches,’ for the wedding of Prince Max of Bavaria with Princess Mary of Prussia, and a cantata for soli, chorus and brasses, set to a poem of King Louis I of Bavaria. In 1843 he produced Das Feldlager in Schlesien (The Camp in Silesia), a German opera, based on anecdotes of Frederick the Great, the national hero of Prussia; which, coldly received at first, was at once successful when the brilliant Swedish soprano, Jenny Lind, made her first appearance in Prussia in it, as Vielka, the heroine. Three years later he composed the incidental music for Struensee, a drama written by his brother Michael. The overture is still considered an example of his orchestration at his best.
His chief care, however, from 1843 to 1847 was bestowed on worthily presenting the works of others at the Berlin Opera. Gluck’s Armida and Iphigenia in Tauris; Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Zauberflöte; Beethoven’s Fidelio; Weber’s Freischütz and Euryanthe; and Spohr’s Faust, the last a tribute of appreciation. He even procured the acceptance of Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer and Rienzi, that ‘brilliant, showy, and effective exercise in the grand opera manner,’ whose first performance he directed in 1847.
In 1849 Meyerbeer produced Le Prophète in Paris, after many months of rehearsal. The score shows greater elevation and grandeur than that of Les Huguenots, but it is marred by contradictions and inequalities of style. In spite of its success and many undeniably beautiful sections, it betrays a falling off of the composer’s creative power; and it suffers from overemphasis. His two successful efforts to compete with the composers of French opéra comique on their own ground, L’Étoile du Nord and Le pardon de Ploërmel (‘Dinorah’), were heard in Paris in 1854 and 1859, respectively. L’Étoile du Nord was practically Das Feldlager in Schlesien, worked over and given a Russian instead of a Prussian background. Its success was troubled by the last illness and death of the composer’s mother, to whom he was passionately attached. A number of shorter vocal and instrumental compositions were written during the five years that elapsed between its première and that of his second comic opera. This, Le Pardon de Ploërmel, was set to a libretto by Carré and Barbier. It is a charming pastoral work, easy, graceful, and picturesque. Its music throughout is tuneful and bright, but its inane libretto has much to do with the neglect into which it has fallen.
From 1859 to 1864, besides the shorter compositions alluded to, Meyerbeer worked on various unfinished scores: a Judith, Blaze de Bury’s Jeunesse de Goethe, and others. He left a quantity of unfinished manuscripts of all kinds at his death. But mainly during this period he was busy with the score of L’Africaine, his last great opera. When at length, after years of hesitation, he had decided to have it performed and it was in active preparation at the opera, he was seized with a sudden illness and died, May 2, 1864. He had not been spared to witness the first performance of this which he loved above all his other operas and on which he lavished untold pains. It was produced, however, with regard to his wishes, April 28, 1865, and was a tremendous success. Scribe’s libretto contains many poetic scenes and effective situations and gave the composer every opportunity to manifest his genius.
It is the most consistent of his works. In it he displays remarkable skill in delineation of characters and situations. His music, in the scenes that occur in India, is rich in glowing oriental color. Nowhere has he made a finer use of the hues of the orchestral palette. And in the fifth act, which crowns the entire work, he exalts to the highest emotional pitch the noble and touching character of his heroine, Selika, who sacrifices her love for Vasco da Gama, that the latter may be happy with the woman he loves. In dignity and serenity the melodies of L’Africaine surpass those of the composer’s other operas. Its music, though in general less popular than that of Les Huguenots, is of a finer calibre, and the ceaseless striving after effect, so apparent in much of his other work, is absent in this.