Tuning into Opera 2026

Meyerbeer’s “Le Prophète” premiered in 1849. In the audience were Dickens, Chopin, Verdi and Berlioz. By this time he was the clear ruler of Grand Opera, and of the Paris Opera where they were performed. The place of The Prophet Robert le diable  (1831) had dominated the 30's, until Les Huguenots  (1836), which was even grander and less frivolous than Robert. Le Prophète  (1849) was, like The Huguenots, a melodramatic and very dark account of the human cost of religiou

Giacomo Meyerbeer is widely regarded as the link between Mozart and Wagner. He also linked German orchestration and Italian singing styles, and thereby launched French Grand Opera. His hugely successful operas were sung in French, not German, and premiered in Paris, not Berlin, though he was Prussian Court Kapellmeister (Director of Music) from 1832, and later Prussian General Music Director. Becoming Meyerbeer Born in 1791, Jakob Liebmann Meyer Beer changed his surname in

"The most German of composers," was Wagner's great honour for Weber, at his funeral. But Weber's final opera was in English, premiered in London. And it is now largely forgotten. Oh the costumes! Akt II. Scene 2. Oberon in a commercial. WikiCommons He had TB - and he must have known its progress as his mother and sister had died of the dread disease. Concerned for income of his wife and children after his death, Weber accepted a commission from Covent Garden to conduct a p