Meyerbeer: Il Crociato in Egitto

Meyerbeer composed Il Crociato in just over one year, between September 1822 and the following autumn, at the end of the German composer's so-called "Italian period". Although this is an opera of great dramatic and musical complexity its première was highly successful with both audience and critics, one commentator accurately describing it as "a building of highlyapplauded construction". The plot, so rich in events, skilfully weaves historical-religious elements with private happenings and feelings. Against the background of the interreligious conflict between Christians and Muslims, the story of the main characters unfolds in an efficacious alternation of grand choral scenes and solo numbers with arias and cabalettas.

Meyerbeer’s elaborate use of vocal and orchestral forces is seminal in the development of 19th-century opera. Opera Rara’s edition features all the music written for productions the composer supervised. In the opera Adriano, a Knight of Rhodes, comes to Egypt in search of his nephew Armando, whom he believes may have died in battle. In fact he has married Palmide, daughter of the Sultan of Egypt and she has converted to Christianity. The furious Sultan throws everyone in jail, but all is forgiven when Armando intercedes in a plot to overthrow his father-in-law.

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.

Michael Spyres is a singer who challenges and reshapes perceptions – as his albums BariTenor and Contra-Tenor have shown. Now, preparing for his debut at the Bayreuth Festival in Summer 2024, he searches In the Shadows to reveal more about Wagner and the origins of his music dramas. “Wagner evokes a varying spectrum of emotions – awe, ecstasy, even trepidation,” explains Spyres. “This album endeavours to illuminate the composers who languish in the shadows, who formed the foundation of Wagner’s compositions and sculpted the framework of vocal writing for the Wagnerian tenor.” In the Shadows culminates with three arias by Wagner – from Lohengrin and the lesser-known Die Feen and Rienzi. Preceding them are early-19th-century arias by composers of the French, German and Italian schools: Méhul, Beethoven, Rossini, Meyerbeer, Weber, Auber, Spontini, Bellini and Marschner. Spyres’s distinguished companions in his exploration are the players of Les Talens Lyriques and their conductor Christophe Rousset.