Meyerbeer

9 Posts
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How An Austrian Becomes Italian: Meyerbeer’s Overture to Romilda e Costanza
Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791-1864), born the year Mozart died, found his own musical art in his youth. His first production, a ballet, was staged when he was 19 and still a student. After studying in Germany, Meyerbeer went to Italy, where
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Meyerbeer: Les Huguenots
Premiered Today in 1836
What do you call the massacre of thousands of Huguenot Protestants by Catholic forces on St. Bartholomew’s Day, 1572? In artistic terms, you’d have to call it the most successful opera of the 19th century. When Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots premiered
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At the Center of the Musical Universe
Giacomo Meyerbeer II
Giacomo Meyerbeer completed his opera Le Prophète in 1849. Based on the Anabaptist seizure of power in the 16th century, it details the elevation of John of Leyden as “the Prophet,” and culminates in a final cataclysm when John and
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At the Center of the Musical Universe
Giacomo Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer’s five-act opera Robert le diable premiered at the Paris Opera on 21 November 1831. It was the first of four works for which Meyerbeer was to become one of the most prominent composers of opera at the time.
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Blowing the Budget
Giacomo Meyerbeer
It is prohibitively expensive to stage an opera. In 2012 alone, the Metropolitan Opera in New York had expenses totaling 317 million US Dollars! For one, you need singers, an orchestra of roughly 80 players and a conductor. Some popular
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A date with the Devil
Giacomo Meyerbeer: Robert the Devil
The nice thing about going to an opera performance is that you get to have fictional dates with characters your mom would almost certainly disapprove of. Take for example Robert le diable (Robert the Devil), an opera in five acts
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Bewitched in a Magic Garden
Giacomo Meyerbeer in Italy
Giacomo Meyerbeer first visited Italy in 1816. He only planned for a brief study tour, but in the event, it gradually extended itself to nine years! During that time, the composer produced seven operas, starting with the semi-serious Romilda e
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Cousin Marriage
Giacomo Meyerbeer and Minna Mosson
The fictional HBO series Game of Thrones, already in its fourth season and slated to run for at least another 2 years has once again garnered a number of impressive awards and accolades. Loosely based on the novel A Song
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