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Page 74
What might have developed under better conditions is shown
in a work by Hal�vy entitled, "La juive," in which is to be
found promise of a great school of opera, a promise unhappily
stifled by the advent of an eclectic, the German Meyerbeer,
who blinded the public with unheard of magnificence of staging,
just as Rossini before him had blinded it by novel technical
feats. Meyerbeer thus drew the art into a new channel, and,
unluckily, this new tendency was not so much in the direction
of elevation of style as in sensationalism.
To return to the French composers. H�rold was born in 1791,
in Paris, and his principal works were "Zampa" and the "Pr�
aux clercs." The first was produced in 1831, the latter in
1832. He died in 1833. Boieldieu was born in 1775, in Rouen;
died 1834. His principal works were "La dame blanche" and
"Jean de Paris."
Hal�vy (Levy) was born in 1799, in Paris, and died in 1862;
his father was a Bavarian and his mother from Lorraine. He
wrote innumerable operas. His most famous work, "La juive,"
written in 1835, was killed by Meyerbeer's "Huguenots," and
produced a year later. He was professor of counterpoint at
the Conservatoire from 1831, among his pupils being Gounod,
Mass�, Bazin, and Bizet.
Auber was born in 1782, and died in May, 1871. He was
practically the last of the essentially French composers.
His operas may be summed up as being the perfect translation
into music of the witty plays of Scribe, with whom he was
associated all his life. To read a comedy by Scribe is to
imagine Auber's music to it. No one has excelled Auber in
the expression of all the finesse of wit and lightness of
touch. What the union between the two men was may be inferred
from the fact that Scribe wrote many of his librettos to
Auber's music, the latter being written first, Scribe then
adding the words. His principal works are "Masaniello" or
"The Mute," and "Fra Diavolo." He was appointed director of
the Paris Conservatoire, in 1842, in succession to Cherubini.
In speaking of Gr�try, I quoted his opinion (given in one of
his essays on music) as to what opera should be and cited his
use of the _leitmotiv_ in his "Richard Coeur de Lion" (which
contains the air, _une fi�vre br�lante_). If with this we
quote his reasons for writing op�ra comique rather than grand
opera, we have one of the reasons why French opera has, as yet,
never developed beyond Massenet's "Roi de Lahore" on one side,
and Delibes' "Lakm�" on the other.
Gr�try writes that he introduced lyric comedy on the stage
because the public was tired of tragedy, and because he had
heard so many lovers of dancing complain that their favourite
art played only a subordinate r�le in grand opera. Also the
public loved to hear short songs; therefore he introduced many
such into his operas.
Even nowadays, this seeming contradiction between theory and
practice is to be found, I think, in the French successors of
Meyerbeer. The public needed dancing, and all theories must
bend to that wish. Even Wagner succumbed to this influence in
Paris; and when Weber's "Freisch�tz" was first given at the
grand opera, Berlioz was commissioned to arrange ballet music
from Weber's piano works to supply the deficiency.
In France, even to-day, everything gives way to the public,
a public whose intelligence from a poetic standpoint is, in
my opinion, lower than that of any other country. The French
composer is dependent on his country (Paris) as is no musician
of other nationality. Berlioz' life was embittered by the want
of recognition in Paris. Although he had been acclaimed as
a great musician all over Europe, yet he returned again and
again to Paris, preferring (as he admits) the approbation of
its musically worthless public to his otherwise world-wide fame.
We remember that Auber never stirred out of Paris throughout
his long life. It was an article in the _Gazette Musicale_ of
Paris which was instrumental in calling Gounod back into the
world from his intended priestly vocation. And this influence
of the admittedly ignorant and superficial French public is
the more remarkable when one considers the fact that it was
always the last to admit the value of the best work of its
composers. Thus Berlioz' fame was gained in Russia and Germany
while he was still derided and comparatively unknown in Paris.
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