Chapter
History, Myth and Music in a Theme of Exploration: Some Reflections on the Musico-Dramatic Language of L’africaine
1. Some Comments on the Music: The Integrity of the Score
2. Some Comments on the Story: Dramatic Coherence and Symbolic Integration
Historical Concerns and Biblical Theology in French Grand Opera
The Political-Religious Determinant in French History
Giacomo Meyerbeer and Jewish Emancipation
Paris in the Early Nineteenth Century
The New Intellectual Background
George Sand on Robert le Diable and Les Huguenots (Lettres d’un Voyageur, 1837)
Don Carlos and the Inquisition
Old and New Covenants: Historical and Theological Contexts in La Juive by Scribe and Halévy
1. Historical Presuppositions and Perspectives
1.2. The Atmosphere of Antique Times
1.2.1. The Period of the Late Middle Ages: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century and Its Sorrows (Tuchman 1978)
1.2.2. The Contemporary Crisis, Finding the True Way: Orthodoxy or Freedom? Liberty in Martyrdom: John Hus and the Early Reformers
1.2.3. Justice and Mercy: Heresy and Its Suppression in the Middle Ages
1.2.4. Jewish-Christian Questions in the Middle Ages: Miscegenation, the Right of Choice, and Innate Human Dignity
1.2.5. Later Protestantism and the Jewish Question
2.1. Faith, Religion, Dissent and Retribution in La Juive
2.1.1. Ceremony and Ritual
2.1.1.1. Act 1: Public Ceremony
2.1.1.2. Act 2: Private Ritual
2.1.1.3. Act 3: Public Ceremony
2.1.1.4. Act 4: Private Rituals
2.1.1.5. Act 5: Public Ceremony
2.1.2. The Sacramental Reference
2.1.3. The Clash of the Old and New Covenants Selfhood and Faith, Identity and Allegiance
2.1.3.1. Rachel: Resolution and Independence
2.1.3.2. Interlocking Triangles: Eudoxia-Leopold-Eleazar; Eleazar-Leopold-Rachel; Rachel-Leopold-Eudoxia
2.1.3.3. Leopold: Failed Heroism and the Vortex of Passion
2.1.3.4. Brogni: Grace, Law and Fate
2.1.3.5. Eleazar: Fatherhood, Faith, and Fury
2.1.4. The Search for Truth and Freedom
Theological Aspects of Scribe’s and Meyerbeer’s Le Prophète
The Religious Subtext and Submerged Biblical Models
2. Prophet, Priest and King
The Mother of the Prophet (Mary, Daughter of Zion, Seat of Wisdom, Mother of the Messiah, Patroness and Arc of Salvation)
1. Mimesis and Symbolism (Mother and Custodian of Faith)
The Beloved of the Prophet (Mary Magdalene, Fallen, Suffering, but Faithful and Loved; Judith, the Sign and Agent of Salvation)
3. Anointing—Confirmation? Ordination? Coronation? The Sacrament of the Sick?
Apocalyptic and Expiatory Death as Romantic Topos
Other Cinemographic Imposters
Some Famous Interpreters of Le Prophète at Covent Garden
Meyerbeer the Man and Robert le Diable
A Romantic Quest: Meyerbeer’s Adaptation of the Faust Theme
Religious and Faustian Themes in Meyerbeer’s Operas
An Eschatological Concern
A Mephistophelian Variant
The Path of Purgation and the Mystical Ascent
The Path of Purgation and the Ladder of Illumination
Faustian Elements in the Last Operas: The Eternal Feminine
Meyerbeer and the Comic Spirit: Miniature Variations on Grand Themes
1. Meyerbeer and the Opéra-Comique
2. The Crucial Place of Ein Feldlager in Schlesien
3. Recurrent Themes in Meyerbeer’s Works
5. The Pastoral Inheritance
7. Comedy: Restoration and Integration
8. The Return to Legend and Romance
9. Faith and Superstition
Meyerbeer’s Late Mysterious Operas
Meyerbeer’s Margherita d’Anjou:
Historical and Gendered Politics
The Historical Background
Pixérécourt and the French Romantic Mélodrame
IV. The Conventions and Adaptations of Melodramma
The Motifs of Exile and Disguise
The Chorus, Scenic Complex, Orchestral Innovation and Couleur locale
Contemporary Performances
London, King’s Theatre, January 1828
VII . The French Version(Marguerite d’Anjou
VIII. Modern Performances
Martina Franca, 29 July 2017
The Pastoral as Structural Determinant in the Grand Opera Scenarios of Scribe and Meyerbeer
Introduction: Dance and the Pastoral Ideal
The Pastoral Realized: Robert le Diable
The Pastoral Denied: Les Huguenots
The Pastoral as Implicit Reproof: Le Prophète
The Purposeful Orchestral Use of Pastoral as Thematic Vector: Le Pardon de Ploërmel and L’Africaine
Political Concerns and Literary Topoi in French Grand Opera
( Fine Arts, Music and Literature )
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