Metaphors for Meyerbeer

Abstract

The avowed inability of nineteenth-century Parisian critics to express in words their impressions of music (whether instrumental or lyric) doubtless has something to do with a more or less general lack of training, but in the case of the works of Meyerbeer it also points to a particular idea of opera. An intense interest in orchestration (outlined here in reviews of Robert le diable, Les Huguenots, Le prophète and L'Africaine; also in Berlioz's Grand traité d'instrumentation et d'orchestration modernes) is articulated in enthusiastic examination of the instruments themselves, and in striking metaphors of science, technology and manufacture. The presence of this gloss on Meyerbeer in otherwise Romantic appreciations (for example Balzac's Gambara) suggests a way of reading opera reception in tune with the urban culture of the period.