Meyerbeer - Le Prophete
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Label: LSO Live
Cat No: LSO0894
Format: Hybrid SACD
Number of Discs: 3
Genre: Opera
Release Date: 28th June 2024
Contents
Artists
John OsbornElizabeth DeShong
Mane Galoyan
James Platt
Edwin Crossley-Mercer
Guilhem Worms
Valerio Contaldo
Maxime Melnik
David Sanchez
Hugo Santos
Lyon Opera Chorus
Maitrise des Bouches-du-Rhone
Mediterranean Youth Orchestra
London Symphony Orchestra
Conductor
Mark ElderWorks
Le PropheteArtists
John OsbornElizabeth DeShong
Mane Galoyan
James Platt
Edwin Crossley-Mercer
Guilhem Worms
Valerio Contaldo
Maxime Melnik
David Sanchez
Hugo Santos
Lyon Opera Chorus
Maitrise des Bouches-du-Rhone
Mediterranean Youth Orchestra
London Symphony Orchestra
Conductor
Mark ElderAbout
Recorded live in concert at Festival d'Aix-en-Provence in 2023, this album sees the London Symphony Orchestra and conductor Sir Mark Elder join forces with Lyon Opera Chorus, Maîtrise des Bouches-du-Rhône, the Mediterranean Youth Orchestra, and an incredible cast of soloists to bring to life Meyerbeer's visionary historical drama, Le Prophète.
The opera is loosely based on a true story. In the 1500s, a charismatic innkeeper is converted to Anabaptism by itinerant preachers. After becoming a preacher himself, John of Leiden came to Münster and established a tyrannical rule, renaming it Jerusalem and proclaiming himself king, before later being killed.
Add to this a bride who is a fighter, and the most formidable mother figure ever shown on an operatic stage, and Le Prophète is the quintessential grand opera – a spectacular large-scale work that made the Paris Opera the leading stage in Europe, and Meyerbeer a composer admired and envied by the greatest. The first performances at Paris Opera were also notable for being the first time that electrical lighting was used at that theatre, to suggest a sunrise – a process specially created by the French physicist Léon Foucault and photographer Jules Duboscq.
"An indisputable highlight of the festival was July 15's concert performance of 'Le Prophète'. […] The evening was broadcast live on Radio France, but the achievement of Elder and everyone else here deserves wider currency and it would be tragic if a recording was not forthcoming" – Opera Magazine
"This was certainly a night to remember" – OperaWire
Cast:
- Jean de Leyde: John Osborn
- Fidès: Elizabeth DeShong
- Berthe: Mané Galoyan
- Zacharie: James Platt
- Count Oberthal: Edwin Crossley-Mercer
- Mathisen: Guilhem Worms
- Jonas: Valerio Contaldo
- First Anabaptist: Maxime Melnik
- Second Anabaptist: David Sánchez
- Peasant: Hugo Santos
The opera is loosely based on a true story. In the 1500s, a charismatic innkeeper is converted to Anabaptism by itinerant preachers. After becoming a preacher himself, John of Leiden came to Münster and established a tyrannical rule, renaming it Jerusalem and proclaiming himself king, before later being killed.
Add to this a bride who is a fighter, and the most formidable mother figure ever shown on an operatic stage, and Le Prophète is the quintessential grand opera – a spectacular large-scale work that made the Paris Opera the leading stage in Europe, and Meyerbeer a composer admired and envied by the greatest. The first performances at Paris Opera were also notable for being the first time that electrical lighting was used at that theatre, to suggest a sunrise – a process specially created by the French physicist Léon Foucault and photographer Jules Duboscq.
"An indisputable highlight of the festival was July 15's concert performance of 'Le Prophète'. […] The evening was broadcast live on Radio France, but the achievement of Elder and everyone else here deserves wider currency and it would be tragic if a recording was not forthcoming" – Opera Magazine
"This was certainly a night to remember" – OperaWire
Cast:
- Jean de Leyde: John Osborn
- Fidès: Elizabeth DeShong
- Berthe: Mané Galoyan
- Zacharie: James Platt
- Count Oberthal: Edwin Crossley-Mercer
- Mathisen: Guilhem Worms
- Jonas: Valerio Contaldo
- First Anabaptist: Maxime Melnik
- Second Anabaptist: David Sánchez
- Peasant: Hugo Santos
Europadisc Review
Following the huge successes of their collaborations on Robert le Diable (1831) and Les Huguenots (1836), Giacomo Meyerbeer and Eugène Scribe’s next collaboration had to wait 13 years to see the light of day. Like Les Huguenots, Le Prophète deals with religious turmoil in the 16th century, focused on the role of the innkeeper John of Leiden at the head of the rebellious Anabaptist movement, and their brief usurpation of power in Münster, which they renamed as a ‘new Jerusalem’. Meyerbeer himself feared that the religious subject matter might compromise the opera’s performability, but in the event it chimed perfectly with the public mood in the wake of the 1848 revolution and the ‘July Days’ which followed. The moral ambiguity of the central character (Jean is more antihero than hero) is set against a context from which scarcely anyone – neither the opportunistic Anabaptists nor the feudal nobility against which they struggled – is presented in a favourable light.
Jean’s love interest, the peasant girl Berthe, is one of the exceptions, but the love story is largely kept in the background, and instead she is swept along (and eventually away) by events in a manner that must have been familiar to many in the opera’s early audiences. The work’s heroine – or, at least, moral compass – is Jean’s mother, Fidès, a demanding mezzo-soprano role composed for the acclaimed singer (herself a composer) Pauline Viardot. The musical and dramatic challenges of the central figures, as well as changing tastes, have ensured that since the early 20th century Le Prophète has become a rarity even in the recording studio (a famous exception was the 1976 CBS recording starring James McCracken, Marilyn Horne as Fidès and Renata Scotto as Berthe).
Yet in its day Le Prophète was a grand opera of huge influence. Its April 1849 premiere at the Paris Opéra was attended by composers Chopin, Verdi and Berlioz (who wrote a detailed and enthusiastic review of the work), as well as writers Dickens, Turgenev and Théophile Gautier and the French Romantic artist Delacroix. The success of the opera was a major factor in prompting Wagner to pen his notorious essay Das Judenthum in der Musik (conveniently sidestepping the issue of Meyerbeer’s influence on Wagner’s own works). It was also the first occasion on which electric lighting was used at the Paris Opéra, to depict the sunrise toward the end of Act III.
More importantly, Le Prophète’s pessimistic plot, its final conflagration, and the vast forces and innovative details of scoring all left their mark on the operatic repertoire in a far more durable way than its neglected status would suggest. Amid the current wave of grand operatic revivals it’s therefore good to welcome a new recording which, like 2018’s Oehms release of a performance from the Aalto Music Theatre in Essen, uses the 2011 critical edition of the score. Recorded live at the 2023 Aix-en-Provence Festival in collaboration with the Pallazzetto Bru Zane, it is conducted by Mark Elder at the head of the London Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestre des Jeunes de la Méditerranée, with the Lyon Opera Chorus and the young singers of the Maîtrise des Bouches-du-Rhône.
Alongside his championship of British music, Elder has built a strong reputation as a champion of neglected 19th-century repertoire, and his command of the opera’s dramatic tensions and its sheer sonic variety are a huge asset here. And he leads an impressive cast that includes (as did the 2018 Essen set) American tenor John Osborn, a masterly exponent of the French grand operatic repertoire who also starred in Bru Zane’s recent issue of Robert le Diable. Here he gives an astonishingly musical and sensitive portrayal of the opera’s complex central character, by turns honeyed, impassioned and (in the drinking song which prepares for the final calamity) heroically ringing. As the work progresses, you can sense Jean’s conflicting emotions, his visionary moments vying with loyalty to both his sweetheart and his mother.
In the latter role – one of the great operatic mother figures – mezzo-soprano Elizabeth DeShong is simply outstanding, expressively invested, vocally a match for both Osborn and the extravagant forces of Meyerbeer’s orchestra, without ever losing focus. Her Act V aria-cabaletta ‘Ô prêtres de Baal’ is one of many highlights she contributes to this recording, as is her Act IV duo ‘Pour garder à ton fils’ with Berthe, a part sung with a combination of tender vulnerability and ardour by soprano Mané Galoyan. The character’s motivation may at times be confused, but this portrayal is urgently persuasive, and taken together you’d have a hard job to cast a better principal trio today.
They are partnered by an equally accomplished supporting cast, among whom bass-baritone Edwin Crossley-Mercer as the oppressive Count d’Oberthal and bass James Platt as Zacharie, one of the trio of Anabaptists, are particularly imposing. The chorus sing their socks off, totally involved in proceedings and splendidly caught by producer Stephen Johns and his team. The combined LSO-Mediterranean orchestra are crucial to the performance’s success, not least in the marvellous Act III ballet sequence (which originally featured roller skaters!) and the Act IV coronation scene, and every strand of the extravagant score is both audible and clearly relished. It’s quite a coup for this performance to appear on the LSO Live label, and it comes complete with libretto and English translation as well as detailed notes and synopsis. At a very competitive price, this is a release that will quicken the heart-rate of all lovers of 19th-century opera. Unhesitatingly recommended!
Reviews
The combination of the LSO’s dynamism and Bru Zane’s investment gives us brilliant audio quality – especially noticeable since this is a live recording from the Aix Festival in 2023 – and a smart physical product with in-depth essays and a full libretto in French and English. ... Osborn’s Jean is hard to fault, mastering romantic ardour in a sweet voix mixte, stirring in his Act 3 prayer and then suitably acrid as he turns on his fickle followers. Elizabeth DeShong’s Fidès is splendid, delivered with ripe, fruity tone and good agility. ... Completing a fine trio, Mané Galoyan’s Berthe is soulful, bright-toned and sympathetic. Neil FisherGramophone September 2024
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