Robert le diable

Meyerbeer, c. 1825, shortly before he commenced working on Robert.

Giacomo Meyerbeer's early studies had been in Germany, but from 1816 to 1825 he worked in Italy. There he studied opera, then dominated by Gioachino Rossini, and wrote his own Italian operas, which were moderately successful and also had some performances in other European countries.[2] The success of Il crociato in Egitto (1824) throughout Europe, including at Paris in 1825, persuaded Meyerbeer, who was already thirty-three years old, to fulfil at last his ambition to base himself in Paris, and to seek a suitable libretto for an opera to be launched there.[3]

Meyerbeer first mentions Robert le diable in his diaries in February 1827. The Journal de Paris announced on 19 April 1827 that the libretto of Scribe and Delavigne had been passed by the censor and that 'the music is to be entrusted to a composer, M. Meyer-Beer, who, having acquired a brilliant reputation in Germany and Italy, is extending it to our country, where several of his works have been already successfully represented.'[4]

The libretto was fabricated on the basis of old legends about Duke Robert the Magnificent of Normandy, the father of William the Conqueror, alleged in some versions to have been the son of the Devil. The librettists padded out this outline with a variety of melodramatic incidents. The plot reflected 'the fantastic legendary elements which fascinated the opera public of 1830', a taste which had evolved from the 1824 Paris production of Carl Maria von Weber's Der Freischütz (in its French version Robin des bois), which also features a doubtful hero befriended by a demon promising him success.[5][6]

The libretto was originally planned as a three-act opéra comique for the Opéra-Comique theatre. Meyerbeer stopped work on the opera in 1827 when the theatre underwent financial difficulties. In August 1829, the composer and librettists agreed to refashion the work in a five-act form to meet the requirements of the Paris Opéra.[7] This entailed some significant rewriting of the storyline, reducing the essentially comic role of Raimbaut (who vanishes after Act 3 in the final version, but whose antics – including the spending of Bertram's money – continued throughout in the earlier libretto). It also meant that the traditional 'pairing' of lovers in opéra comique (Robert/Isabelle paralleled throughout by the 'lower-class' Raimbaut/Alice) was swept aside in favour of concentration on the more sensational story-line of Robert's diabolic ancestry.[8]

The contract for the opera, specifying it as a "grand opera in five acts and seven scenes", was signed by the then director of the Opéra, Émile Lubbert, on 29 December 1829. Meyerbeer completed the composition of the work in Spa, Belgium in June and July 1830.[9] Its characterisation as a 'grand opera' placed it in succession to Auber's La muette de Portici (1828) and Rossini's Guillaume Tell (1829) in this new genre. The composer undertook further work on the opera in early 1831, converting spoken passages to recitatives and adding ballet episodes, including, in Act 3, the "Ballet of the Nuns", which was to prove one of the opera's great sensations, and which Henri Duponchel had suggested to replace the original humdrum scenario set in Olympus. He also rewrote the two major male roles of Bertrand and Robert to suit the talents of Nicolas Levasseur and Adolphe Nourrit, respectively.[7][10]

Guéymard as Robert (Courbet, 1857)

The plot of the opera has been often cut or rearranged in various productions. The outline given below follows the description given in The New Grove Dictionary of Opera (1992).[35]

Act 3

Sketch of an unused design for Act 3, scene 2 (Ciceri, c. 1831)

The countryside near Palermo

Degas: "Ballet of the Nuns" from Act 3 of Robert le diable (1876 version)

Bertram meets Raimbaut, who has arrived for an assignation with Alice. He gives him a bag of gold and advises him not to marry Alice as his new wealth will attract plenty of women (Ah! l’honnête homme). Raimbaut leaves and Bertram gloats at having corrupted him. Bertram reveals that Robert, to whom he is truly devoted, is his son; he then enters an adjoining cave to commune with the spirits of hell. Alice enters and expresses her love for Raimbaut (Quand je quittai la Normandie). She overhears strange chanting coming from the cave and decides to listen; she learns that Bertram will lose Robert forever if he cannot persuade him to sign away his soul to the Devil by midnight. On emerging from the cave, Bertram realizes that Alice has heard everything (Mais Alice, qu’as-tu donc?). He threatens her and she promises to keep silent. Robert arrives, mourning the loss of Isabelle, and Bertram tells him that to win her he should seize a magic branch from the tomb of Saint Rosalia in a nearby deserted cloister. Although to take it is sacrilege, the branch will give Robert magical powers. Robert declares that he will be bold and do as Bertram instructs. Bertram leads Robert to the cloister. The ghosts of nuns rise from their tombs, beckoned by Bertram, and dance, praising the pleasures of drinking, gambling and lust. Robert seizes the branch and fends off the demons who surround him.

Act 4

A room in the palace

Isabelle is preparing for her marriage with the Prince of Granada. Alice rushes in to inform her of what she has learnt about Robert, but she is interrupted by envoys of the Prince who enter bearing gifts. Robert arrives and, using the power of the branch, freezes everyone except himself and Isabelle.

Unsettled by the power he's wielding, he confesses to Isabelle that he is using witchcraft, but begs her not to reject him. She expresses her love for him and implores him to repent (Robert, toi que j'aime). Robert breaks the branch and the spell it has created, and is taken into custody by Isabelle's attendants.

Act 5 scene 1, with Levasseur, Nourrit, and Falcon, as painted by the costume designer, François-Gabriel Lépaulle (1835)

The costumes were designed by François-Gabriel Lépaulle.[36]

• 
  Dorus-Gras as Alice
• 
  Nourrit as Robert
• 
  Cinti-Damoreau as Isabelle
• 
  Levasseur as Bertram
• 
  Costume for a devil

A number of factors influenced the opera's very favourable reception. The initial cast contained leading singers of the period and, as it changed, equally brilliant stars (e.g. Falcon) were introduced as replacements. The sensational plot and the notoriety of the Nuns' ballet ensured that the opera was a hot topic in journals and reviews. This was assisted by the marketing skills of the director Véron and the publisher Schlesinger. The scenery was of exceptional quality: "This was as much an opera to see as to hear, and it has been argued that the real hero behind Robert le diable was Cicéri, the designer."[6] Meyerbeer was keen to keep influential persons on his side. For example, he sent free tickets for 'a good box' to Heinrich Heine.[37] And of course the businessman Véron knew how to use (and pay) the claque and its leader Augustin Levasseur.[38]

But undoubtedly the novelty and colour of the music of Meyerbeer deserves major credit. The alliance of his German musical training, along with his study of opera for many years in Italy, was highly attractive to a Parisian audience which 'asked only to be astonished and surprised.'[39] The critic Ortigue wrote that Meyerbeer 'straight away [took] his position at the crossroads where Italian song and German orchestration have to meet.'[40] Meyerbeer paid close attention to unusual combinations and textures and original orchestration, examples being the use of low brass and woodwind playing chromatic passages associated with Bertram;[10] the use of a brass band and male choir to characterise the demons in Act 3; and so on. Hector Berlioz was particularly impressed; he wrote an entire article in the Revue et gazette musicale, entitled 'On the Orchestration of Robert le diable ', which concluded:

Robert le Diable provides the most astonishing example of the power of instrumentation when applied to dramatic music; ... a power of recent introduction which has achieved its fullest development in the hands of M. Meyerbeer; a conquest of modern art which even the Italians will have to acknowledge in order to prop up as best they can their miserable system which is collapsing in ruins.[41]

The opera was perceived to have weaknesses of characterization. For example, Robert's dithering behaviour led to one comment that "what is least diabolical in Robert le diable is Robert himself."[42] But the critic Fétis gave the consensus opinion: "Robert le diable is not only a masterpiece; it is also a remarkable work within the history of music ...[it] seems to me to unite all the qualities needed to establish a composer's reputation unshakeably."[40]

The success of the opera led to Meyerbeer himself becoming a celebrity. King Frederick William III of Prussia, who attended the second performance of Robert, swiftly invited him to compose a German opera, and Meyerbeer was invited to stage Robert in Berlin.[43] In January 1832 he was awarded membership of the Légion d'honneur.[44] This success – coupled with Meyerbeer's known family wealth – inevitably also precipitated envy amongst his peers. Berlioz wrote "I can't forget that Meyerbeer was only able to persuade [the Opéra] to put on Robert le diable ... by paying the administration sixty thousand francs of his own money"; and Chopin lamented "Meyerbeer had to work for three years and pay his own expenses for his stay in Paris before Robert le diable could be staged ... Three years, that's a lot – it's too much."[45]

The success of Robert had profound consequences, for the institution of the Paris Opéra itself, for the music, staging and popularity of nineteenth century opera as a whole, and for ballet.

First page of manuscript of Grand duo concertant on themes of Robert by Chopin and Franchomme

The fortuitous timing of the opera's premiere, not long after the July Revolution, and its sensational and novel effects, meant that it was widely identified with the new, liberal, ideas of the July Monarchy. As Berlioz commented, Meyerbeer had "not only the luck to be talented, but the talent to be lucky."[46] Honoré de Balzac (in his novella Gambara)[47] and Heinrich Heine (in his poem Angélique)[48] are just two of the contemporary writers to express their fascination with the opera. Alexandre Dumas set a chapter of The Count of Monte Cristo between two acts of Robert; and George Sand wrote about it at length in her Lettres d'un voyageur.[49] It is the only nineteenth-century opera to have a rose named after it.[50]

Also, the absence of starchy historical content in Robert doubtless played a part in attracting the bourgeoisie to the opera, until then regarded as primarily an aristocratic entertainment. The success of the opera also justified the government's policy of 'privatization' in selling the management to Véron, and this was a landmark in the dilution of state control and patronage in the fine arts.[51] Although Véron had not commissioned it (having taken control only after the Revolution), Robert was his first new production as manager of the Opéra, and its success underwrote his policy of commissioning similar works. These were to include Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots, Fromental Halévy's La Juive, and Daniel Auber's Gustave III. However, while they used 'the same dazzling theatrical rhetoric' as Robert, they led to 'uniformly horrific dénouements' with 'gripping moral urgency', their more sophisticated plot-lines reflecting the changes in taste of the new opera clientele.[52] They established Paris as Europe's opera capital, with the Opéra itself as its centre, in the period 1830 until 1850.

The Act 3 ballet is regarded by some as the first of the ballets blancs (whereby the principal ballerina and the corps de ballet are all clothed in white) which became a favourite of the nineteenth-century repertoire. Later examples include La Sylphide (1832) (also choreographed by Filippo Taglioni and danced by his daughter), Giselle (1841), Pas de Quatre (1845) and Les Sylphides (1909).[53]

Music from the opera became the subject of numerous virtuoso works of the time. The brilliant transcription of its themes (Reminiscences de Robert le diable)[54] made by the composer and virtuoso Franz Liszt was so popular that it became his calling card: on more than one occasion he was forced to interrupt his programmed concerts to play it because of the demands of the audience.[55] On the day of its publication by Maurice Schlesinger, the edition of 500 was completely sold out and it had to be immediately reprinted.[56] Indeed, the success of Robert, whose score was also published by Schlesinger, was said to have saved him from bankruptcy.[57] Frédéric Chopin and Auguste Franchomme jointly composed a Grand duo concertant on themes from the opera, for cello and piano, in 1832,[58] and the Italian pianist and composer Adolfo Fumagalli composed an elaborate fantasy on the opera for left hand alone as his Op. 106.[59]

Other pieces based on the opera included works by Adolf von Henselt[60] and Jean-Amédée Méreaux.

Edgar Degas painted the scene of the Nuns' ballet twice. The earlier version (1871) is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. In 1876 Degas painted a larger version for the singer Jean-Baptiste Faure (who had sung the part of Bertram); this version is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.[61]

The work's popularity spawned many parodies and pastiches including one by W. S. Gilbert, Robert the Devil, which opened at the Gaiety Theatre, London in 1868. It is referenced in the opening scene of Andrew Lloyd Webber's "The Phantom of the Opera", where an auction item is described as "Lot 664: a wooden pistol and three human skulls from the 1831 production of "Robert le Diable" by Meyerbeer."

Notes

Printed sources

• Becker, Heinz; Becker, Gudrun (1989). Giacomo Meyerbeer: A Life in Letters, translated by Mark Violette. London: Christopher Helm. ISBN 0-931340-19-5.
• Berlioz, Hector (1970). The Memoirs of Berlioz, translated by David Cairns. London: Panther.
• Brown, Clive (2001). "Giacomo Meyerbeer", pp. 570–577, in The New Penguin Opera Guide, edited by Amanda Holden. New York: Penguin / Putnam. ISBN 0-14-029312-4.
• Brzoska, Matthias (2003). 'Meyerbeer: Robert le Diable and Les Huguenots ' in Charlton (2003), pp. 189–207.
• Carlson, Marvin (1972). The French Stage in the Nineteenth Century. Metuchen, New Jersey: The Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-0516-3.
• Carnegy, Patrick (2006). Wagner and the Art of the Theatre. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300106954.
• Charlton, David, editor (2003). The Cambridge Companion to Grand Opera. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-64118-0 (hardcover); ISBN 9780521646833 (paperback).
• Chorley, Henry F. (1972). Thirty Years' Musical Recollections, edited by Ernest Newman. New York: Vienna House.
• Conway, David (2012). Jewry in Music: Entry to the Profession from the Enlightenment to Richard Wagner. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107015388.
• Crosten, William L. (1948). French Grand Opera: An Art and a Business. New York: King's Crown Press.
• Everist, Mark (1994). 'The Name of the Rose: Meyerbeer's opéra comique, Robert le Diable', in Revue de musicologie, vol.80 no.2, pp. 211–250.
• Fétis F-J. (1862). Biographie universelle des musiciens (in French), second edition, volume 3. Paris: Didot. View at Google Books.
• Hamilton, Kenneth (2008). After the Golden Age: Romantic Pianism and Modern Performance. Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-517826-5.
• Heubner Steven (1992). 'Robert le Diable', in The New Grove Dictionary of Opera edited by Stanley Sadie, London: Macmillan Press, vol. 3, pp. 1357–1359.
• Jürgenson, Knud Arne (1998). 'The "Ballet of the Nuns" from Robert le diable and its Revival", in Meyerbeer und das europäische Musiktheater edited by S. Döhring and A. Jacobshagen, pp. 73–86. Laaber: Laaber-Verlag. ISBN 3-89007-410-3.
• Letellier, Robert Ignatius (2012). Meyerbeer's Robert le Diable: The Premier Opéra Romantique. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN 9781443841917.
• Levarie, Siegmund (1995), "Meyerbeer [Meyer Beer], Giacomo [Jakob Liebmann]" in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. Vol. 12, pp. 246–256. London: Macmillan. ISBN 0333231112
• Meyerbeer, Giacomo (1999). The Diaries of Giacomo Meyerbeer. Volume 1: 1791–1839, translated and edited by Robert Ignatius Letellier. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press; London: Associated University Presses. ISBN 9780838637890.
• Pitou, Spire (1990). The Paris Opéra: An Encyclopedia of Operas, Ballets, Composers, and Performers. Growth and Grandeur, 1815–1914. New York: Greenwood Press. ISBN 9780313262180.
• Shaw, George Bernard (1981). Shaw's Music: The Complete Musical Criticism, edited by Dan H. Laurence. 3 vols. London: The Bodley Head. ISBN 0-370-30333-4.
• Smart, Mary Ann (2003). "Roles, reputations, shadows: singers at the Opéra, 1828–1849", in Charlton (2003), pp. 108–128.
• Taruskin, Richard (2010). Music in the Nineteenth Century: The Oxford History of Western Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-538483-3.
• Walker, Alan (1988). Franz Liszt: The Virtuoso Years 1811–1847. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 978-0-571-15278-0.
• Williams, Simon (2003). 'The Spectacle of the Past in Grand Opera' in Charlton (2003), pp. 58–75.

Online sources

• Casaglia, Gherardo (2005)."Robert le diable". L'Almanacco di Gherardo Casaglia (in Italian).
• Kaufman, Tom, "A Few Words About Robert le Diable" on the "Meyerbeer Fan Club" website, retrieved 10 January 2011
• Kühnhold, Wolfgang (1998). "A Discussion of Meyerbeer's Robert le diable" on the "Meyerbeer Fan Club" website, retrieved 4 April 2012

Media related to Robert le diable at Wikimedia Commons

• Robert le diable: Scores at the International Music Score Library Project
• 1831 libretto (Paris: Bezou) at Google Books