Giacomo Meyerbeer

Giacomo Meyerbeer (September 5, 1791 – May 2, 1864) was a noted opera composer, and the first great exponent of Grand Opera.

Meyerbeer was born to a Jewish family in Vogelsdorf, Germany with the name Jacob Liebmann Beer. His father was the enormously wealthy financier Jacob Judah Herz Beer(1769-1825) and his much-beloved mother, Amalia Liebmann Meyer Wulff (1767-1854)also came from the wealthy elite. Their other children included the astronomer Wilhelm Beer and the poet Michael Beer.

Meyerbeer made his debut as a nine-year old playing a Mozart concerto in Berlin - throughout his youth, although he was determined to become a musician, he found it difficult to decide between playing and composition. Certainly other professionals in the decade 1810-1820, including Moscheles, considered him amongst the greatest virtuosi of his period. In his youth Beer studied with Antonio Salieri and the German master and friend of Goethe, Karl Zelter. Realizing however that a full understanding of Italian opera was essential for his musical development, he went to study in Italy for some years, during which time he adopted the first name Giacomo. The 'Meyer' in his surname he adopted after the death of his great-grandfather. it was during this time that he became acquainted with, and impressed by, the works of his contemporary Gioacchino Rossini.

Meyerbeer's name first became known internationally with his opera 'Il Crociato in Egitto' (1826), but he became virtually a superstar with Robert le diable (Robert the Devil), (libretto by Eugene Scribe), produced in Paris in 1831 and generally recognised as the first Grand Opera. The fusion of dramatic music, melodramatic plot and sumptuous staging proved a sure-fire formula which Meyerbeer repeated in Les Huguenots (1835), Le Prophète (1849), and L'Africaine, (produced posthumously, 1865). All of these operas held the international stage throughout the 19th century. However, expensive to stage, requiring large casts of leading singers, and subject to consistent attack from the prevalent Wagnerian schools, they gradually fell into desuetude. Meyerbeer's music was banned by the Nazi regime because of its composer's origins.

Nonetheless, the operas are now beginnnig to be regularly revived and recorded. A theme from Les Huguenots is played by the Massed Bands of the Household Division of the British Army during the annual Trooping the Colour ceremony in June.

== Meyerbeer and Wagner ==

The vitriolic campaign of Richard Wagner against Meyerbeer (initiated by his Judaeophobic article 'Das Judentum in der Musik' ('Jewry in Music') of 1850) was to a great extent responsible for the decline of Meyerbeer's popularity after his death in 1864. This campaign was as much a matter of personal spite as of racism - Wagner had learnt a great deal from Meyerbeer and indeed Wagner's early opera Rienzi (1842) has been called 'Meyerbeer's most successful work'. Meyerbeer supported the young Wagner, both financially, and in obtaining a production of Rienzi at Dresden. However Wagner, who was skilled at biting hands that fed him, resented Meyerbeer's continuing success at a time when his own vision of German opera had little chance of prospering. After the Dresden revolution of 1848 Wagner was for some years a political refugee facing a prison sentence or worse in Saxony - during this period when he was gestating his Ring cycle he had few sources of income apart from journalism and benefactors, and little opportunity of getting his own works performed. The success of Le Prophète sent Wagner over the edge, and he was also deeply envious of Meyerbeer's wealth. His attack on Meyerbeer (which also included a swipe at Felix Mendelssohn) is regarded by many as a significant milestone in the growth of German anti-Semitism.

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