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Updated: May 16, 2025
Enthusiasm of the Critics and the Public. Introduction of Pasta to the English Public in Rossini's "Otello." The Impression made in England. Recognized as the Greatest Dramatic Prima Donna in the World. Glances at the Salient Facts of her English Career. The Performance of "Il Crociato in Egitto." She plays the Male Rôle in "Otello." Rivalry with Malibran and Sontag.
Returning to Italy, Meyerbeer produced "Margherita d' Angiu" at La Scala, Milan, following it with "L'Esule di Granata"; and then in 1824 Venice saw and heard the "Crociato."
"The Gate of Brandeburg," "Margharita d' Anjou," "Esule di Granata," and "Almanzar" followed in quick succession, and were well received, though with nothing like the furor which "Il Crociato in Egitto" created in Venice in 1824. His next great work, "Robert le Diable," was produced in Paris, Nov. 21, 1831, the unparalleled success of which carried its fame to every part of the civilized world.
Chor-ley recalls the impression she made on him at this time in more precise and emphatic terms: "From the first hour when Maria Garcia appeared on the stage, first in 'Il Barbiere' and subsequently in 'Il Crociato, it was evident that a new artist, as original as extraordinary, was come one by nature fairly endowed, not merely with physical powers, but also with that inventive, energetic, rapid genius, before which obstacles become as nothing, and by the aid of which the sharpest contradictions become reconciled."
This last opera made the tour of the world, carried the name of the composer to every place where musical art was cultivated, and won for Meyerbeer, from the distant Emperor of Brazil, the decoration of the Cross of the South. In Paris alone Paris, which afterwards made such an idol of the composer did the "Crociato" fail to meet with immediate success.
She made her début on June 7, 1825, and was immediately engaged for the remaining six weeks of the season at five hundred pounds. Her first success was followed by a second in Meyerber's 'Il Crociato, in which she sang with Velluti, the last of that extraordinary genre of artists, the male sopranos.
"II Crociato" was produced in Paris in 1825, and the same year in London.
I said, at the beginning of this study, that we were ungrateful to Meyerbeer, and this ingratitude is double on the part of France, for he loved her. He only had to say the word to have any theatre in Europe opened to him, yet he preferred to them all the Opéra at Paris and even the Opéra-Comique where the choruses and orchestra left much to be desired. When he did work for Paris after he had given Margherita d'Anjou and Le Crociato in Italy, he was forced to accommodate himself to French taste just as Rossini and Donizetti were. The latter wrote for the Opéra-Comique La Fille du Régiment, a military and patriotic work, and its dashing and glorious Salut
Meyerbeer returned to Venice, and in 1824 brought out "Il Crociato in Egitto" in that city, an opera which made the tour of Europe, and established a reputation for the author as the coming rival of Rossini, no one suspecting from what Meyerbeer had then accomplished that he was about to strike boldly out in a new direction.
The clear, pure style of Gluck and Mozart which, like that of Goethe, seems to be bathed in the light of Italy the style which begins to change and to become vibrant and dazzling with Weber the style ridiculed by the ponderous caricatures of the author of Crociato had been killed by the triumph of Wagner. The wild flight of the Valkyries with their strident cries had passed over the Grecian sky.
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