His Other Grand Operas.—Five years later Robert was followed by Les Huguenots (The Huguenots), which achieved a still greater success, and is the one opera of Meyerbeer which continues to hold its own against the encroachments of time. In one or two episodes of Le Prophète (The Prophet), which was produced in 1849, the composer reached the highest level of his creative activity, notwithstanding the manifest artificiality of his scheme. His last work, L’Africaine (The African), was brought out the year after his death and like the others owed its success to a skilful mingling of all the elements, musical, spectacular, and dramatic, which go to make up this type of opera. His L’Étoile du Nord (Star of the North) and Le Pardon de Ploërmel (better known as Dinorah) were composed for the Opéra Comique.
Influence of Meyerbeer.—Meyerbeer so held the public in his grip that other composers of Grand Opéra gained but slight attention during his lifetime. Only Jacques Halévy (1799-1862) was able to meet him on equal terms in this field with La Juive (The Jewess), in which he shows the earnest spirit of his master Cherubini. Though Meyerbeer’s watchword was success at any cost and his aim to assure it by the accumulation of cunningly devised sensations rather than through the innate power of his music, his works had a powerful and, on the whole, a beneficial influence on the course of modern dramatic music. They placed living, palpitating beings on the stage instead of the cold abstractions of mythology and antiquity; the singer was forced to impersonate as well as to sing. His insistence on all means of expression—vocal, instrumental, and scenic—though often exaggerated and fatal to purity of style, led to an extension of technical ability in all these directions, and prepared the way for a master of greater power and higher aims. It must not be overlooked that Richard Wagner frankly modeled his Rienzi (1842) after Les Huguenots, and that Meyerbeer in Le Prophète shows plainly the influence of this work by his German contemporary.
Questions.
What two styles are found in French opera?
Tell about the origin of Opéra Comique.
Tell about the development of Opéra Comique.
Describe the typical opéra comique.
Mention the prominent composers in this form and their work.
Describe Opéra Bouffe.
What composers were prominent in this form?