Giacomo Meyerbeer, one of the most important and influential opera composers of the nineteenth century, enjoyed a fame during his lifetime unrivalled by any of his contemporaries. This eleven volume set provides in one collection all the operatic texts set by Meyerbeer in his career. The texts are offered in the most complete versions ever made available. Each libretto is translated into modern English by Richard Arsenty; and each work is introduced by Robert Letellier. In this comprehensive edition of Meyerbeer's libretti, the original text and its translation are placed on facing pages for ease of use. The fifth volume presents Robert le Diable (1831), the first of Meyerbeer's epoch-making grand operas. It had one of the most successful premieres in operatic history, and enjoyed phenomenal popularity in the 19th century. Contemporary criticism showed that the French, and indeed all Europe, seemed to see in this opera a symbol of their own epoch, with all its ardors, despairs and ambiguities. The spirit of Romanticism had inspired both librettist and composer. By its vivid melodies and great dramatic power, by its color and contrast, its bold use of the religious idea, it appealed to the emotions and intelligence of the public. The authors had addressed the preoccupations and intimations of the age. The choice of the Norman legend, with its various hues and dramatization of the eternal struggle in the human soul between light and darkness, good and evil, was a skillful adaptation of the Faust theme central to so many Romantic concerns. The fundamental modernity of Meyerbeer's concept of opera was very clear to his contemporaries. After the premiere the critic and musicologist Francois-Joseph Fetis described the opera as a remarkable production in the history of art. Verdi, who knew Meyerbeer's work well and valued it highly, saw in Robert le Diable an outstanding alliance of the fantastic and the true in the manner of Shakespeare.
About the Author: Richard Arsenty, a native of the U.S. midwest, received degrees from the University of Illinois in Biology Education and Library Science. After teaching for seven years at the high school, college and university levels, he took advantage of a unique opportunity and went to work as a libretto translator for MRF Records in New Jersey. Eight years later he decided to return to academia, accepting a position as Science Reference Librarian at Purchase College near New York City. At the end of 2002, after sixteen years of service to the college, he took an early retirement and returned to Illinois where his family is located. Richard has translated more than 160 libretti for organizations such as Opera Orchestra of New York, The New York City Opera, The Waterloo Festival, Hungaraton Records, Orfeo Records and Opera Rara. His translations include all of Meyerbeer's operas (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2004), Nerone (Boito), Das Liebesverbot (Wagner), La Juive (Halevy), Marino Faliero (Donizetti), Salammbo (Reyer), Jerusalem (Verdi), Crispino e la Comare (Ricci) and many others. Robert Ignatius Letellier was born in Natal, and educated in Grahamstown, Cambridge, Salzburg, Rome and Jerusalem. He is a member of Trinity College (Cambridge), the Salzburg Centre for Research in the Early English Novel (University of Salzburg), the Maryvale Institute (Birmingham), and the Institute for Continuing Education at Madingley Hall (Cambridge). His publications include books and articles on the late-seventeenth-, eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century novel (particularly the Gothic Novel and Sir Walter Scott), the Bible, and European culture, with emphasis on the Romantic opera and ballet. He has specialized in the work of Giacomo Meyerbeer (a four-volume English edition of his diaries, a collection of critical and biographical studies, a guide to research, and two readings of the operas, as well as compiling and introducing editions of the complete libretti and non-operatic texts). He has also written on the ballets of Ludwig Minkus.