The Many Faceted Beauties of Meyerbeer'

The Many Faceted Beauties of Meyerbeer's Gli Amori di Teolinda

Reflections upon the May 10, 1998 Utrecht performance

by Stephen A. Agus

In 1815, long prior to his operatic triumphs in Italy and France, the 24 year old Giacomo Meyerbeer composed an extraordinary little piece, running 45 minutes, called Gli Amori di Teolinda; billed as a "scenic cantata", it was intended as a show-piece for the virtuoso clarinet of Heinrich Baermann and his consort, the soprano Helene Harlas. It was scored also for a male chorus and orchestra.

Along with the entire Meyerbeer oeuvre, the piece is rarely performed these days; yet, a proper performance provides the listener with so many beautiful musical gifts that astonish us -- once for the maturity and innovation displayed by the young composer and once again for the failure of today's musical establishment to perform and promote this early Meyerbeer masterpiece. Not needing "seven stars", stage effects, costumes, stage bands, huge choruses, organs and ballerinas, and requiring a top soprano and clarinettist only, Gli Amori casts aside all the traditional excuses for not performing Meyerbeer's music.

Here is an intimate, accessible piece, foreshadowing Meyerbeer's innovative development, twenty years later, of the dramatic French "romances". Beginning in the 1830's, as Europe's most famous and successful composer of Grand Opera, Meyerbeer sought to impress upon traditional French "chanson" some of the dramatic elements borrowed from the opera stage. The result was a new form, distinguished from both the prior French "chanson" and the German "lieder", which became the cornerstone of Piaf and Aznavour more than a century later.

Many of us are familiar with the studio version of Gli Amori with Julia Varady, soprano, and it is the only extant recording [Orfeo C-054-831 A]. In that recording by Radio Symphony Orchestra of Berlin, Gerd Albrecht, Conductor, the clarinet is played by Jorg Fadle. But the many faceted beauties of Gli Amori do not entirely reveal themselves in that recording. As has been commented upon with respect to opera and clasical music generally, a studio recording does not have the vibrancy and sense of anticipation that we expect in a live performance, however "perfect" it may be from a technical point of view.

Given that, the noted English clarinettist Emma Johnson, with great interpretive skill, has shown us an imaginative Gli Amori in which the clarinet, orchestra, male chorus and soprano are blended into perfect balance and undoubtedly well within the intentions of the composer. Ms. Johnson, who has long established herself as one of the top 20th century interpreters of both Weber and Spohr, rises to the occasion to tackle both the complex and subtle elements of the score, with a fine clear legato alternating with well articulated staccati. Her interpretation shows far more than a superficial understanding of the musical requirements of the piece. In this live performance with the Radio Symphony Orchestra of the Netherlands in May, 1998 at Utrecht, The Netherlands, Julian Reynolds conducted, and Nellie Miricioiù was the soprano. Judging from the recording, there was a sense of immediacy and excitement as only a live performance can convey, and we are sorry not to have been there ourselves to witness it. The audience (few of whom, I am sure, were familiar with the piece) was obviously very pleased.

The versatile, Rumanian born soprano Nellie Miricioiù was equal to the task, working in perfect harmony with Ms. Johnson's clarinet. We would like to hear Ms. Miricioiù in more Meyerbeer roles.

Much later in the oeuvre of Meyerbeer, as we find in Feldlager, L'etoile du nord and Dinorah, the interplay between flute and solo soprano blend the traditional distinctions between instrumental and vocal music; but we need to be reminded, as we are through Gli Amori, that Meyerbeer experimented with these unusual forms early in his career. That should alone stand to refute the oft-repeated, but unproven "received knowledge" that Meyerbeer's music can be dismissed as mere eclecticism. On the contrary, as Gli Amori clearly demonstrates, Meyerbeer had a musical voice all his own, invariably maintained throughout his spectacular career.

Though not containing many of Meyerbeer's later acquired musical characteristics -- the Meyerbeerian "melodie brisse", the musical mosaic effect, and the blurring of the lines between recitatif and the set pieces -- Gli Amori di Teolinda, which is within the more conventional Italian form, nevertheless provides us with a window of opportunity to hear the youthful composer's evident, but emerging genius. Standing as it does in the shadow of the gigantic achievement of Il Crociato in Egitto, Robert le Diable, Les Huguenots, L'etoile du nord, Le Prophete, Dinorah and L'africaine, Gli Amori is often overlooked as juvenalia. It is however, as this new recording reveals, a small masterpiece waiting to be re-discovered.

Wouldn't it be nice if one of our famous opera houses introduced some variety into the repertory by doing a production of Gli Amore di Teolinda along with one of the single act operas of a later era? It would so relieve the boredom!

We owe a debt of gratitude to Emma Johnson and the Radio Symphony Orchestra of the Netherlands for bringing us this fine work.

Stephen Agus