Giacomo Meyerbeer

Common card · No. 267011

Giacomo Meyerbeer (born Jakob Liebmann Meyer Beer; 5 September 1791 – 2 May 1864) was a German opera composer, linking Mozart and Wagner. With his 1831 opera Robert le diable and its successors, he gave the genre of grand opera "decisive character". Meyerbeer's grand opera style was achieved by his merging of German orchestra style with Italian vocal tradition. These were employed in the context of sensational and melodramatic libretti created by Eugène Scribe and were enhanced by the up-to-date theatre technology of the Paris Opéra. They set a standard that helped to maintain Paris as the opera capital of the nineteenth century. Born to a wealthy Jewish family, Meyerbeer began his musical career as a pianist but soon decided to devote himself to opera, spending several years in Italy studying and composing. His 1824 opera Il crociato in Egitto was the first to bring him a Europe-wide reputation, but it was Robert le diable (1831) which raised his status to great celebrity. His public...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Au Ménestrel, Paris, 1865. Uploaded, stiched and restored by JLPC, Public domain