It is
certainly true that with Robert le Diable,
Meyerbeer launched his career. He was given the libretto after it had passed by
the censor in 1827; prior to this he had largely produced Italian operas.
Originally Robert le Diable was to be
a comic opera in three acts but following a change in theatre (owing to financial
difficulties) the Paris Opera had ordered it to be re-written into a five act
dramatic opera.
The
storyline concerns various legends surrounding “Robert the Devil”. It has often
been said that this was a nickname given to Duke Robert the Magnificent of
Normandy, the father of William the Conqueror, who was alleged to be the son of
the Devil. However, it is more likely that “Robert the Devil” was a fictional
character around at a similar time and their names became confused sometime
during the middle-ages.
By 1834 Robert le Diable had been performed over
100 times in Paris, performances followed in Berlin, London, Dublin & New
York and Meyerbeer was launched as an international composer. The initial
success of the opera was partly due to the to the provocative "Ballet of
the Nuns" scene in Act 3 during which a crowd of ghostly nuns off their
habits, dust themselves off and throw themselves into the delights of past
lives. Robert le Diable continued to
be a success throughout Meyerbeer’s lifetime, by the time of his death the
opera had been performed over 470 times in Paris alone!
During the
20th Century performances dwindled slightly, this may partly be due
to the scorn pcast upon Meyerbeer by Wagnerians Wagner was not a big fan of
Meyerbeer (putting it lightly) and many have accused him of creating the
character Sixtus Beckmesser in Die
Meistersinger von Nurnberg as a parody of Meyerbeer. Nevertheless, there
have been a few performances of Robert le
Diable in recent years, particularly worthy of note is the Berlin State
Opera's production from 2000 starring Jianyi Zhang as Robert and conducted by
Marc Minkowski.
This new
release comes from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and premiered on 6th
December 2012, the first time Robert le
Diable has been performed there since 1890. The production is directed by
Laurent Pelly and conducted by Daniel Oren. Bryan Hymel – starring as Robert –
was nominated for an Oliver award this year for his performance in Berlioz’s Les Troyens and gives an equally amazing performance here. This is a fresh and dramatic production on a grand scale and is certainly worth a watch. It is available both as a DVD and a Blu-Ray.
