The operas of Giacomo Meyerbeer

"Many opera lovers today have never heard of Meyerbeer. His life and work have been largely forgotten. There is little knowledge about his operas, let alone a perception of his operatic oeuvre as an integral artistic sequence. This book endeavors to redress some of this ignorance. It offers a presentation and reading of his stage works, the complete Meyerbeer operas, considered chronologically in terms of the unfolding of the composer's life and artistic concerns." "While his four grands operas have never been totally forgotten, the works of his young adulthood are still unknown. His early German operas are completely disregarded, dismissed as dry academic exercises. Investigation shows them to be full of innovation and pioneering impulses, especially in the use of recurring motifs. The Italian operas, for long equally unknown, have begun to fare a little better. There have been major revivals of Il Crociato in Egitto, and more recently, of Margherila d'Anjou and Semiramide riconosciuta. Here, vivid invention, musical ingenuity, and a profound sense of theater, increasingly bear comparison with Rossini. But these operas are far more than imitations: they show an apprehension of convention and genre that is nothing less than a dismantling of accepted formulas, and a highly original reconstruction of them."--Jacket.