The music of Giacomo Meyerbeer is featured on this week’s Sunday Opera (2/11 3:00 p.m.) beginning with a 1970 recording of his 1849 work, “Le Prophete.”
The libretto by Eugen Scribe and Emile Deschamps is based on the historical tale of John of Lieden, the self-proclaimed king of Munster during the Anabaptists uprising in Munster. Through the course of this three-act opera, John is convinced by the Anabaptists to lead their cause and begins to proclaim himself “emperor.” His mother and wife both assume he is dead after an altercation, and wife decides to take revenge on the man who has caused her so much grief, not knowing that it is actually John. Her actions in the opera cause a devastating fire which destroys much of Munster.
There’s so much more – too much to recount here – that includes abductions, attacks, explosions and more that you’ll just have to tune in to hear the entire story.
On a happier note, the gloom, doom, and utter conflict of the opera is broken in the third act by Meyerbeer’s arguably best-known work, “Les Patineurs” which featured members of the ballet “skating” on a form of primitive in-line skates which were created some 50 years before regular roller skates came into being.
The stellar cast includes Nicolai Gedda as John, Marilyn Horne is his mother, Fides, and Margherita Rinaldi is Berthe, John’s wife. Other members of this cast include Robert El Hage, Fritz Peter, and Boris Carmeli. Henry Lewis conducts the Italian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Torino.
After the opera, we’ll have just enough time to sneak in a non-operatic work by Meyerbeer, his Quintet in E-flat major, so those people who only know him for his operas will have a chance to enjoy him on a different level.
Join us for a Meyerbeer opera that isn’t “Les Huguenots” and an afternoon of great music.
