Autograph musical quotation signed. The opening 4 measures in piano score of the March du Sacre (The Coronation Scene) from Act IV of the composer's opera, Le Prophète
Notated in black ink on stationery embossed "Bath" at upper left. Attractively matted, framed, and glazed together with a lithographic portrait of the composer. Overall size 27 x 40 cm.
With "Commencement de la marche sacre du Prophète" in Meyerbeer's hand above the quotation and with his full signature below.
Minor creasing. Not viewed out of frame. Le Prophète, a grand opera in 5 acts with libretto by Eugène Scribe (1791-1861), was first performed in Paris at the Opéra on 16 April 1849.
"In Le prophète, Meyerbeer was the first composer to use the leitmotif as an indication of what lies ahead, a function described later by Wagner as Ahnung or premonition: the themes of the coronation scene in Act 4 have already been introduced in instrumental form, and distanced. In both operas, the moment of peripeteia is marked by a spectacular stage effect: in Le prophète it was the first successful use in any theatre of an electric spotlight, which Meyerbeer had specially made by the physicist Léon Foucault. Meyerbeer’s multi-media conception caused him to reject older notions of tone-painting at this point. His contemporaries felt they were blinded by a ‘real sun’. Technologically, the sunrise effect resulted from the most developed technology of the time, and the work itself became a synonym for a new age; the prophet was seen, as Wagner put it, as the ‘prophet of a new world’...
The première of Le prophète was a triumph of theatrical history, and its success was undoubtedly heightened by its unintentional political topicality following the 1848 revolutions. The main roles were sung by Viardot (Fidès), Roger (Jean), and Jeanne Anaïs Castellan (Berthe); Eugène Scribe directed the production, and the orchestra was conducted by Girard. Like Meyerbeer’s other grand operas, Le prophète retained its place in the repertories of all the major international opera houses for decades, and was in the repertory of the Paris Opéra until 1912." Matthias Brzoska in Grove Music Online.
With "Commencement de la marche sacre du Prophète" in Meyerbeer's hand above the quotation and with his full signature below.
Minor creasing. Not viewed out of frame. Le Prophète, a grand opera in 5 acts with libretto by Eugène Scribe (1791-1861), was first performed in Paris at the Opéra on 16 April 1849.
"In Le prophète, Meyerbeer was the first composer to use the leitmotif as an indication of what lies ahead, a function described later by Wagner as Ahnung or premonition: the themes of the coronation scene in Act 4 have already been introduced in instrumental form, and distanced. In both operas, the moment of peripeteia is marked by a spectacular stage effect: in Le prophète it was the first successful use in any theatre of an electric spotlight, which Meyerbeer had specially made by the physicist Léon Foucault. Meyerbeer’s multi-media conception caused him to reject older notions of tone-painting at this point. His contemporaries felt they were blinded by a ‘real sun’. Technologically, the sunrise effect resulted from the most developed technology of the time, and the work itself became a synonym for a new age; the prophet was seen, as Wagner put it, as the ‘prophet of a new world’...
The première of Le prophète was a triumph of theatrical history, and its success was undoubtedly heightened by its unintentional political topicality following the 1848 revolutions. The main roles were sung by Viardot (Fidès), Roger (Jean), and Jeanne Anaïs Castellan (Berthe); Eugène Scribe directed the production, and the orchestra was conducted by Girard. Like Meyerbeer’s other grand operas, Le prophète retained its place in the repertories of all the major international opera houses for decades, and was in the repertory of the Paris Opéra until 1912." Matthias Brzoska in Grove Music Online.