Meyerbeer's 'African Maid'

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1865, the hottest ticket in Paris was for the premiere of Giacomo Meyerbeer’s long-awaited grand opera L’Africaine, or The African Maid, at the Paris Opera. And when I say “long-awaited,” I mean long-awaited! Meyerbeer had begun work on L’Africaine some 25 years earlier. It had become a standing joke in the French press to rib Meyerbeer about the “imminent” completion of his opera.

There were many reasons for the delay: Meyerbeer was a slow worker and a perfectionist; he was sidelined by ill health; he was waiting for better singers, more sympathetic management at the Opera, etc. etc.

Opera fans back then must have given up hope he would ever finish L’Africaine, but — surprise! — he did and the work was slotted for production at the Paris Opera. At that point, ironically, he died, and his widow entrusted another composer to supervise the rehearsals for its 1865 premiere.

Meyerbeer’s operas were the 19th century equivalent of the sweeping costume epic movies of Cecil B. DeMille. In L’Africaine, the hero is the explorer Vasco da Gama, and one of the opera’s more spectacular stage effects involved a Portuguese ship running aground on an exotic reef and being taken over by a swarm of natives.

Music Played in Today's Program

Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791-1864): “O Paradis” from L’Africaine; Ben Heppner, tenor; London Symphony; Myung-Whun Chung, conductor; DG 471 372

On This Day

Births

• 1892 - American folksinger and folksong collector John Jacob Niles, in Louisville, Kentucky

Premieres

• 1865 - Meyerbeer: opera L’Africaine (The African Woman), at the Paris Opéra

• 1892 - Dvořák: In Nature’s Realm Overture, in Prague

• 1892 - Sibelius: symphonic poem/oratorio Kullervo for vocal soloists, chorus and orchestra, in Helsinki, with the composer conducting

• 1928 - Cowell: Sinfonietta, in Boston, Nicholas Slonimsky conducting

• 1938 - Diamond: Elegy in Memory of Maurice Ravel, in Rochester, New York

• 1948 - Stravinsky: ballet Orpheus, by the American Society in New York City

• 1966 - Douglas Moore: opera Carrie Nation, in Lawrence, Kansas

• 1981 - John Williams: Pops on the March by the Boston Pops with the composer conducting

• 2005 - Arne Nordheim: Fonos for trombone and orchestra, in Bergen, Norway, by the Bergen Philharmonic