Meyerbeer

Meyerbeer was a precocious composer and this album traces some of his very earliest works. Der Fischer und das Milchmädchen was his first stage work, a charming rural vignette that contains all the essential features of a ballet-divertissement couched in writing that enchantingly evokes the 18thcentury. Collaborating with his teacher, the Abbé Georg Vogler, Meyerbeer composed DerAdmiralin1811. The following year saw Wirt und Gast with the vivid Oriental exoticism of its Janissary music, while Romildae Constanza, his first Italian opera, shows his complete assimilation of Rossinian models.

Anne Sofie von Otter / Melvyn Tan - Beethoven/Meyerbeer/Spohr: Lieder, Mélodies
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 245 MB | MP3 CBR 320: 175 MB | Full Artwork | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Archiv Produktion # 469 074-2 | Country/Year: Germany 2001 | Genre: Classical

Perhaps through all the down-scaling going on at major record companies, song-recitalists will prove to be the most fortunate, what with their relatively inexpensive production costs and abundant quantity of both well-loved and still-untapped repertoire. Whatever the case, there’s been no shortage of fine solo-song recordings during the past couple of years–and here’s another one that also happens to contain repertoire almost never heard in concert or on disc. And it’s not because the music has little merit. Anyone who enjoys early-to-mid-19th century song will enjoy this…

On 29 November 1863 Giacomo Meyerbeer noted in his journal, "Worked seven hours: the last scene with Selica is instrumented and revised, and with it the score of Vasco completed. May God bless the work and grant it a dazzling and enduring success." Meyerbeer called the opera completed by him four months prior to his death Vasco de Gama, but it came to be known to posterity as L’Africaine (The African Woman). Now how did this happen? Meyerbeer had been working on the opera since 1837, and L’Africaine was its original title. Eugène Scribe’s libretto told the story of an African princess who unhappily falls in love with a Portuguese naval officer. After some initial enthusiasm Meyerbeer soon had his doubts about the subject.

A new disc from Anne Sofie von Otter always arouses eager expectation, whatever the repertoire. None of the composers featured on this recording of Lieder and Mélodies is regarded primarily for his songwriting prowess, yet von Otter conjures winner after winner. Even at their lightest, these pieces never fail to charm, and some of them do a good deal more than that. As one would expect from such an experienced lieder artist, the program is beautifully constructed, with songs carefully placed for maximal variety, not just of tone but also of instrumentation (excellent playing from clarinetist Eric Hoeprich and violinist Nils-Erik Sparf). This is another winner from von Otter and friends.

Giacomo Meyerbeer - Meyerbeer on Record, 1899-1913 (2009) {3CD Set EMI-Marston 53009-2}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 545 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 509 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (png) -> 1.08 Gb | 5% repair rar
© 2009 Marston | 53009-2
Classical / Vocal / Opera / Historic Recording

Giacomo Meyerbeer was one of the most important composers in Paris during the mid-1800s. He is considered the founder of the French Grand Opera and his works dominated the French stage. Meyerbeer changed the face of opera in Paris, and yet, much criticism is directed toward him and much of his music is seldom heard today. This 3-CD set is the first of two volumes, which together honor Meyerbeer and reacquaint the listener with his marvelous music and some very interesting singing. These two volumes contain at least one version of every recorded Meyerbeer excerpt sung by French singers.

Meyerbeer’s opera, written four years before Rossini’s Semiramide, is based on an adaptation, probably done by Count Ludovico Piossasco Feys, of the libretto written by Pietro Metastasio in the far-off year of 1729, which had already been set to music several times by leading composers of the eighteenth century. Count Piossasco Feys worked skilfully and transformed the Metastasio tragedy, based on the classical alternation recitative - solo aria, into a more agile, modern structure, including a smaller number of arias, duets, trios and ensemble pieces. Meyerbeer’s opera was written for one of the most esteemed singers of the day, Carolina Bassi, a performer with a great vocal range that enabled her to give of her best both in contralto and in soprano roles. In the early part of the opera, where Semiramide dresses in men’s clothing, passing herself off as her son, Meyerbeer writes her part using a rather low register.

Volume 23 in the Hyperion Liszt series validates Liszt's phenomenal mastery of transcribing, and in the case of Berlioz's "Harold in Italy," translating an orchestral work with viola obbligato into a magnificent chamber work for piano and viola. The excellent content of Berlioz's work alone can easily earn five stars, but the other three substantial transcriptions of Gounod and Meyerbeer enhance the splendor of this recording even further.

A grand opera that dominated the stages of Europe for most of the 19th century, Robert le diable is a masterpiece. Director Laurent Pelly breathes new life into Giacomo Meyerbeer’s great spectacle and audaciously entertaining moral fable, in this colourful new staging for The Royal Opera. The wonderful score includes brilliant arias, dramatic ensembles, rousing choruses and a ballet of ghostly nuns, and with the wavering hero of the title sung by Bryan Hymel, acclaimed for his role as Énée in Les Troyens for The Royal Opera and the Metropolitan Opera, this is an unmissable experience.

A grand opera that dominated the stages of Europe for most of the 19th century, Robert le diable is a masterpiece. Director Laurent Pelly breathes new life into Giacomo Meyerbeer's great spectacle and audaciously entertaining moral fable, in this colourful new staging for The Royal Opera. The wonderful score includes brilliant arias, dramatic ensembles, rousing choruses and a ballet of ghostly nuns, and with the wavering hero of the title sung by Bryan Hymel, acclaimed for his role as Énée in Les Troyens for The Royal Opera and the Metropolitan Opera, this is an unmissable experience.