Giacomo Meyerbeer, one of the most important and influential opera composers of the nineteenth century, enjoyed a fame during his lifetime hardly rivalled by any of his contemporaries. This ten volume set provides in one collection all the operatic texts set by Meyerbeer in his career. The texts offer the most complete versions 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 eighth volume presents the third of Meyerbeer's great tetralogy of grands operas. In Le Prophete Meyerbeer's dramatic language shows further evolution in refinement. The music, in the richness of harmony, the sophistication of orchestral colour, the vitality of rhythm, and the expressive flexibility of melody, seeks to explore a complex scenario. The discourse of faith is a crucial subtext here, as in all of Meyerbeer's four principal operas. The progressive unfolding of this concept establishes a definite thematic dialectic that is consistently commenting on the surface action in its direct handling of religion and power. In the third stage of religious consideration, depicted in Le Prophete, the focus has shifted from the grand scale of metaphysical struggle in Robert le Diable, and socio political conflict in Les Huguenots, to an examination of the impact of corrupted faith upon the individual and its consequences for those around him. Once again, an organised faith fails to bring peace. Indeed, it brings the most abhorrent conflict and abuses of personal liberty. The ultimate redemption of the hero is mediated through the actions of individuals, his mother and fiancee. Powerful biblical images are used in this process. The composer achieved his master portrait in the character of Fides, one the noblest conceptions of the lyric stage. Meyerbeer forged a magnificent maternal character, and with the tremendous tenor part of the Prophet John of Leyden, created a powerful mother-and-son drama. The high seriousness of the subject, and the dark sublimity of the music, won for this opera a unique regard: People of my father's generation would rather have doubted the solar system than the supremacy of Le Prophete over all other operas (Reynaldo Hahn).
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.