MEYERBEER, GIACOMO (b. Vogelsdorf, near Berlin, Germany, 5 Sept 1791; d. Paris, France 2 May 1864. )
Although he was of German-Jewish parentage, Meyerbeer worked mainly in France and was one of the creators of French grand opera. As a child he was a musical prodigy, playing the piano and later studying composition privately. His first two operas were miserable failures.
Having continued his career as a pianist, he then went to Italy to study the human voice. There he became influenced by the music of Rossini and produced a series of operas that found great success in Italy. His own music was later to have an influence on the early works of the composer Wagner.
In 1826, he fell in love with France on a visit to Paris to see one of his works performed there. He moved there the following year and began his fruitful collaboration with the French librettist Eugene Scribe. Their first opera was Robert le Diable (Robert the Devil ), which premièred at the Paris Opera in 1831. Its mixture of German technique, Italian melodies and remarkable stage production brought immediate success. An even grander work followed in 1836, when the Opera premièred Les Hugenots.
Meyerbeer's next opera was half-begun two years later when he abandoned it to write Ein Feldlager in Schlesien, for the singer, Jenny Lind. (This opera, based on the life of Frederick the Great, is now better known under a later title, L’Étoile du Nord - The Northern Star). His professional relationship with Lind continued in Berlin, where, as music director of the opera, he conducted her in his own works between 1842 and 1849.
After a period in the fifties of writing opéra comiques, he returned to grand opera in 1863, with L'Africaine. This, his final opera, on which he'd been working for over twenty-five years, was produced after his death.
Meyerbeer's love of the possibilities of stage effects combined with the Paris audiences' love of luxury and pomp, led him to produce operas full of spectacle and music of great grandeur. His love of the human voice led him to find inspiration in the performances of the singers of his time and to delight in writing especially for them.
