LSO Live to Release Meyerbeer Opera

This coming Friday, LSO, the “house label” of the London Symphony Orchestra, will release its latest album. Like its most recent release this past February of Leoš Janáček’s opera Káťa Kabanová, the album is a “live” recording of a complete opera performance. This time Mark Elder conducts a complete performance of Giacomo Meyerbeer’s opera Le Prophète, and the recording was made during a performance at the Aix-en-Provence Festival on July 15, 2023. Based on a libretto in French by Eugène Scribe and Émile Deschamps, this is a five-act opera; and the physical recording, currently available for pre-order through an Amazon.com Web page, fills three CDs.

The coronation scene in the fourth act of Le Prophète (engraving published in L'Illustration on April 24, 1849, public domain, from a Wikimedia Commons Web page)

This opera was successful in its day. Meyerbeer was a leading figure at the time, and the opera’s popularity endured into the early twentieth century. Tenor Enrico Caruso sang the leading role of Jean de Leyde when the Metropolitan Opera revived it in 1918. However, by the time I was born in 1946, it was known for little more than the Coronation March, extracted from the second scene of the fourth act.

One might think from the title that this opera is set in Biblical times. It is not. It is set in the sixteenth century in what is now Germany. That leading role is based on John of Leiden, the leader of the Dutch Anabaptist movement. As his Wikipedia page observes, “he became a recognized prophet of a sect which would eventually take over the German town of Münster.” By the end of the opera’s final act, he has been denounced as a false prophet; and (as is often the case in these fictionalized historical narratives) everything goes up in smoke.

Personally, I have my doubts about sitting through a complete performance of this opera. (If it shows up as a San Francisco Opera production, I would give serious thought to wearing a T-shirt saying “I’d rather be watching Götterdämmerung!”) However, once the music is detached from the plot, I am willing to recognize Meyerbeer’s skills as a composer; and tenor John Osborn’s talents in singing the title role should not be overlooked. As a result, I shall probably return to this album, as long as I can listen to the individual acts one at a time!