Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 2.djvu/336

324 'Le Prophète,' produced at Paris in 1849, after long and careful preparation, materially added to its composer's fame. Thirteen years had elapsed since the production of its predecessor. Once again the public, looking for something like the 'Huguenots,' was disappointed. Once again it was forced, after a time, to do justice to Meyerbeer's power of transferring himself, as it were, according to the dramatic requirements of his theme. But there are fewer elements of popularity in the 'Prophète' than in the 'Huguenots.' The conventional operatic forms are subordinated to declamation and the coherent action of the plot. It contains some of Meyerbeer's grandest thoughts, but the gloomy political and religious fanaticism which constitutes the interest of the drama, and the unimportance of the love-story (the mother being the female character in whom the interest is centred), are features which appeal to the few rather than the many. The work depends for its popularity on colouring and chiaroscuro; the airy verve of the ballet-music, and the splendid combinations of scenic and dramatic effects in the fourth act being thrown into strong relief by the prevailing sombre hue.

Meyerbeer's health was beginning to fail, and after this time he spent a part of every autumn at Spa, where he found a temporary refuge from his toils and cares. Probably no great composer ever suffered such a degree of nervous anxiety about his own works as he did. During their composition, and for long after their first completion, he altered and retouched continually, never satisfied and never sure of himself. During the correcting of the parts, the casting of the characters, the 'coaching' of the actors, he never knew, nor allowed any one concerned to know, a moment's peace of mind. Then came endless rehearsals, when he would give the orchestra passages scored in two ways, written in different coloured inks, and try their alternate effect; then the final performance, the ordeal of public opinion and of possible adverse criticism, to which, probably owing to his having been fed with applause and encouragement from his earliest years, he was so painfully susceptible that, as Heine says of him, he fulfilled the true Christian ideal, for he could not rest while there remained one unconverted soul, 'and when that lost sheep was brought back to the fold he rejoiced more over him than over all the rest of the flock that had never gone astray.' This peculiar temperament was probably the cause also of what Chorley calls his 'fidgettiness' in notation, leading him to express the exact amount of a rallentando or other inflection of tempo by elaborate alterations of time signature, insertions or divisions of bars, giving to many of his pages a patchwork appearance most bewildering to the eye.

Faithful to change, he now challenged his adopted countrymen on their own especial ground by the production at the Opéra Comique in 1854 of 'L'Etoile du Nord.' To this book he had intended to adapt the music of the 'Feldlager in Schlesien,' but his own ideas transforming themselves gradually while he worked on them, there remained at last only six numbers of the earlier work. 'L'Etoile' achieved considerable popularity, although it aroused much animosity among French musicians, jealous of this invasion of their own domain, which they also thought unsuited to the melodramatic style of Meyerbeer. The same may be said of 'Le Pardon de Ploermel' (Dinorah), founded on a Breton idyl, and produced at the Opéra Comique in 1859. Meyerbeer's special powers found no scope in this comparatively circumscribed field. The development of his genius since 1824 was too great not to be apparent in any style of composition, but these French operas, although containing much that is charming, were, like his Italian 'wild oats,' the result of an effort of will—the will to be whomsoever he chose.

After 1859 he wrote, at Berlin, two cantatas, and a grand march for the Schiller Centenary Festival, and began a musical drama—never finished—called 'Göthe's Jugendzeit,' introducing several of Goethe's lyrical poems, set to music. His life was overshadowed by the death of many friends and contemporaries, among them his old coadjutor, Scribe, to whom he owed so much.

In 1861 [App. p.719 "1862"] he represented German music at the opening of the London International Exhibition by his 'Overture in the form of a March.' The next winter he was again in Berlin, still working at the 'Africaine,' to which the public looked forward with impatience and curiosity. For years the difficulty of getting a satisfactory cast had stood in the way of the production of this opera. His excessive anxiety and fastidiousness resulted in its being never performed at all during his lifetime. In October, 1863, he returned, for the last time, to Paris. The opera was now finished, and in rehearsal. Still he corrected, polished, touched, and retouched: it occupied his thoughts night and day. But he had delayed too long. On April 23 he was attacked by illness, and on May 2 he died.

The 'Africaine' was performed after his death at the Académie in Paris, April 28, 1865. When it appeared in London (in Italian) on the 2 2nd July following, the creation by Mdlle. Lucca of the part of 'Selika' will not soon be forgotten by those who had the good fortune to see it.

The work itself has suffered somewhat from the incessant change of intention of its composer. The original conception of the music belongs to the same period as the 'Huguenots'—Meyerbeer's golden age—having occupied him from 1838 till 1843. Laid aside at that time for many years, and the book then undergoing a complete alteration, a second story being engrafted on to the first, the composition, when resumed, was carried on intermittently to the end of his life. The chorus of Bishops, and Nelusko's two airs, for instance, were written in 1858; the first duet between Vasco and Selika in 1857; while the second great duet took its final form as late as the end of 1862. The excessive length of the opera on its first production (when the performance occupied more than six hours) necessitated considerable curtailments