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Search - Giacomo Meyerbeer: L'Africaine Deuxi]me Partie (22 Morceaux Et Fragments Indits)

Giacomo Meyerbeer L'Africaine Deuxime Partie - 22 Morceaux Et Fragments Indits
Author: Robert Ignatius Letellier

This volume presents the various pieces of music from fragments, through complete pieces, to whole scenes that were not used in the final performing edition of Meyerbeer s L Africaine. The genesis of Meyerbeer s last opera is something of a legend. He had first considered the subject in 1837 when Scribe presented him with two new drafts, inten... more »ded to clinch the triumphant successes of Robert le Diable (1831) and Les Huguenots (1836). The composer began composing Le Prophète immediately, but had the other project, L Africaine, ever in his mind. By 1843 a piano score was ready, but the subject as it stood then, concerning Fernando da Soto s explorations in West Africa, did not satisfy Meyerbeer. Scribe was asked to rewrite the libretto in 1851, with the hero changed to Vasco da Gama, and focussed on his epic voyage around the Cape of Good Hope to India. A new contract was signed in 1857, and the greater part of the opera was written between 1857 and 1863, in spite of the Meyerbeer s growing debility. Meyerbeer died on 2 May 1864, the day after the completion of the copying of the full score of Vasco da Gama. The rehearsal period was always a time of radical revision and excision for the composer, and he left a verbal request that the work should not be produced if he were not alive to supervise it. Minna Meyerbeer and César-Victor Perrin, the director of the Opéra, however, entrusted the editing of a performing edition to the famous Belgian musicologist François-Joseph Fétis, while the libretto was revised by Mélesville. Because of the long public expectation, the editors restored the original title, and attempted to reconcile this to the Hindu elements of the action by shifting the action to the island of Madagascar. L Africaine was produced on 28 April 1865, a glorious posthumous tribute to Scribe and Meyerbeer. Much of the music and action was suppressed, in spite of the resultant strain on the internal logic of the story. The opera caused tremendous enthusiasm, and became enormously popular, being staged 60 times in the first four seasons, and eventually receiving 485 performances in Paris until the end of the century. The Ship Scene, the exotic Indian act, and the finale under the Manchineel Tree exerted a fascination on audiences, and elicited new praise. The work began a triumphal progress through the world, beginning with the big stages of London and Berlin. In its glorious vocal writing, resplendent orchestral colouring and fragrant exoticism, it was a source of delight to many like Franz Liszt, who produced two books of transcriptions from the work. Fétis edited a performing edition of the score, subsequently used all over the world. However, most of Meyerbeer s manuscript was reproduced intact in the orchestral score printed by G. Brandus & S. Dufour. But Fétis also collected all 22 of the unused variants and fragments in vocal score for publication as the so-called Deuxième Partie. These remain a crucial source of information for the history and future performing editions of this great opera.

ISBN-13: 9781443806152
ISBN-10: 1443806153
Publication Date: 6/1/2009
Pages: 250
Rating:

0 stars, based on 0 rating

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Book Type: Paperback
Members Wishing: 0
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

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Search - Giacomo Meyerbeer: L'Africaine Deuxi]me Partie (22 Morceaux Et Fragments Indits)

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