“Don’t complain, it’s better to remember on Mozart than on Meyerbeer”, Henri Jeanson says to Louis Jouvet in the film A ghost by Christian-Jaque in 1946. Meyerbeer is synonymous with “great French opera”, but also with opera at its most monumental, interminable and sometimes grandiloquent. It is this image that is clearly nuanced by a publication which rather reminds us that, among the emblematic works of French grand opera, Robert the devilby Meyerbeer (1831), reigned supreme in the 19e century between Guillaume Tellby Rossini (1829), and The Jewess, by Halévy (1835). We will also remember, historically, the important influence of Meyerbeer on the young Wagner (Rienzi !). We are grateful to the Palazzetto Bru Zane for having had the courage to allocate this milestone the place that belongs to it and to Marc Minkowski and his Bordeaux forces for not weighing down or thickening anything. The happiness of this important rediscovery owes a lot to the high-flying cast: John Osborn (Robert), Nicolas Courjal (Bertram), Amina Edris (Alice), Erin Morley (Isabelle)…
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