Sieghart Döhring
GIACOMO MEYERBEER AND THE OPERA OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
(translated from Meyerbeer Studien -1 [1997] and re-printed by express permission of the author)
"... the whole history of music in the last ten years revolves around his name, and for every musician whom one is obliged to discuss, one involuntarily arrives at the question of how he stands in relation to the music of Meyerbeer, or how he has positioned himself in that regard."
Heinrich Heine (1842)(1)
Heinrich Heine did not exaggerate -- on the contrary, he expressed the prevailing opinion of the influential European critics when he referred to Meyerbeer, at that moment at the height of his fame, as a person of historic stature. Meyerbeer's successful Paris operas Robert le Diable (1831) and Les Huguenots (1836) represented a revolution in the history of the genre, which at least equaled that of Rossini at the beginning of the century, if it did not surpass it in terms of its long-term effect. If, in the history of European opera of the nineteenth century, the first third was incontestably the era of Rossini, the second third was just as incontestably the era of Meyerbeer. It was superseded only in the last third by the era of Wagner. In fact, these three composers are representative of those phases in the evolution of the genre which describe a process of increasing internationalization. One after another, "melodramma", "grand opéra", and "Musikdrama" each defined the esthetic parameters of the musical stage for almost exactly three decades in the nineteenth century. However, the descriptive titles of the genres tend to conceal, rather than clarify, their historical nexus. For it was not as a representative of a national tradition, but rather as an artistic individual who integrated the different traditions, that Rossini, Meyerbeer, and Wagner each created an unmistakable personal style; each placed his stamp on an epoch, "his" epoch of music drama.
It is important to recall the actual development of the history of the opera in the nineteenth century. A nationalistically inspired history of music, first expressed in Germany and later in other countries, left no stone unturned in order to represent the prestigious genre of opera as the emanation of the "spirit of the people" and to situate its development in the history of the nation. Thus, Wagner became the pinnacle of perfection of German opera, and Verdi the culmination of Italian opera. In France, in the absence of a single national composer of comparable significance, various composers such as Gounod, Bizet, or Massenet were declared to be representatives of the musical "esprit français." Though the nationalistic view of the history of nineteenth century opera is hardly circulated any more, nevertheless the ideology of a national style continues to be felt in numerous individual judgments even today, even if only as a kind of unconscious intellectual barrier against drawing appropriate conclusions from obvious historical facts. Thus, the contraposing of Wagner and Verdi as antipodes of the opera of the nineteenth century, on the one hand, and of "music drama" and "aria opera" as archetypal forms of the genre, on the other, constitutes a distortion of the actual development, if, as has been increasingly the case in the last few decades, it is associated with a new esthetic evaluation, namely, the upgrading of the "melodramma" model. Seen from this misleading perspective, the prominent role which both Rossini and Meyerbeer played in the opera of the nineteenth century necessarily had to shrink to a great extent into insignificance. If Rossini could still maintain his position as a "forerunner" of Verdi, Meyerbeer fell victim completely to the change of the esthetic paradigm. The Jewish cosmopolitan, whose work resisted inclusion in the system of national categories of art, became an historical non-person.
Even during his lifetime, Meyerbeer was regarded in Germany as an outsider and in France, his name was removed from the history of national music. In Italy, his significant influence on the development of the "melodramma" since the 1820's was largely passed over in silence. But the popularity of Meyerbeer's operas on the stages of the world for a sustained period remained untouched by the shift in the way he was perceived. When the number of performances declined in the early part of the twentieth century, the causes lay, not in the fading away of the theatrical effect of his works (which, to the contrary, have been triumphantly confirmed again and again to this day), but rather, in the practical difficulties of staging his operas, and more importantly, in the hostile attitude of the music and theater establishment, intermingled from the beginning with anti-Semitic resentment, which has only begun to diminish in the most recent past. With the appearance of Meyerbeer on the opera scene of Europe, something extraordinary occurred that was immediately recognized by alert contemporaries and given the attention it deserved. What was new was the fundamental transformation of dramatic music, evolving from a vehicle of emotions into a vehicle of ideas. If Rossini's revolution was a musical one, which as such set a precedent, that of Meyerbeer was a conceptual one; if Rossini completely reconstituted an existing genre, Meyerbeer created a new one. The numerous purely musical innovations in Meyerbeer's works, from which opera composers of all genres were to draw inspiration during the entire century, were not an end in themselves; rather they were the result of a constant striving to uncover areas of expression which had been closed to music up to that time. Only in a very superficial sense can one call the Meyerbeer of Robert le Diable and Les Huguenots the "consummation" of "grand opéra", a term which at the same time for later music history was tantamount to denouncing him as the chief exponent of an allegedly "commercialized" genre. Apart from that, the highly developed form of organization of the Paris Opéra after 1830, in comparison with other opera venues in Europe will show, actually encouraged esthetic innovations rather than discouraged them; moreover, what is distinctive in a work of art cannot be adequately grasped by approaching it through the institutional and socio-historical circumstances of the time. This is so least of all in the case of Meyerbeer, whose operas did not fulfill the norms of the genre so much as establish them.
It did not occur to any contemporary critic worthy of being taken seriously to recognize Robert le Diable as simply a continuation of Rossini's Guillaume Tell (1829) and Auber's La Muette de Portici (1828), nor to see Les Huguenots as the successor to Halévy's La Juive (1835). On the contrary, the language of the Paris newspaper commentaries, and soon thereafter those of other important European cities, bears witness to an epoch-making musical development revolving around Meyerbeer. The old master of French opera and church music, Jean François Le Sueur, summarized the general mood after Robert: while the music of the period coming to an end, whose exponent was Rossini, made obeisance to hedonistic principles ("l'âge de plaisir"), in the new period now being initiated by Meyerbeer, music has manifested actively creative powers and by doing so has actually found its way to itself ("l'âge actuel de force, d'énergie, de maturité de l'homme").(2) And when, with Les Huguenots, the first historical drama of ideas had arisen from the historical intrigue play, the young Richard Wagner, in harmony with contemporary criticism, could celebrate Meyerbeer as the consummation of a period of art that had begun with Rossini and which now had found its conclusion: "Meyerbeer wrote world history, the history of hearts and feelings, he destroyed the barriers of national prejudices, annihilated the constricting boundaries of languages, he wrote deeds of music."(3) The "grand opéra" as an historical drama of ideas -- this is demonstrated by all the documents on the development of his works which have appeared up to this time -- is Meyerbeer's accomplishment, and not that of his librettist, Eugène Scribe. In fact, Scribe's role in the development of the conception of the work has historically been overrated by far, since the sources were then unknown and Meyerbeer never publicly revealed his own part in the process. Deliberately, the composer understood how to motivate his friend and librettist, whose theatrical experience he regarded highly, by criticizing and by making suggestions of his own toward the dramaturgical conception which he had in mind. If he could not reach his goal in any other way, Meyerbeer did not hesitate to consult other librettists, sometimes secretly. In the case of Les Huguenots, we now know that he consulted with Gaetano Rossi, with whom he had been close in his Italian years. In the history of opera up to that time it was unheard of for a composer to influence a librettist so deeply; in fact, it was to a degree that was not exceeded later even by Verdi, e.g., in his relationship with Piave. For Meyerbeer, it was precisely those elements,fundamental to the historical drama of ideas, which he tenaciously insisted upon to Scribe: the historical color of the epoch, tableaus as historical panoramas, and finally the focusing of all the individual musical elements on a single historical "message", either philosophical or theological. In this conceptual, discursive structure lay what was really new in the opera of Meyerbeer, that which marks it as an outstanding witness, not only of the history of music in the nineteenth century, but also of intellect and culture. As Wagner said, "We have learned from this son of Germany how religion can be preached on the stage."(4) Meyerbeer, too, was aware of his historical role as the creator of a new type of opera, as can be discerned from time to time from private remarks, e.g., when he spoke of his "esthetic point de vue" or of his "dramatic system"(5); he always refrained from advocating his artistic ideas in public.
The precondition of a kind of "music, socially modern, and motivated by humanitarian principles," as Heinrich Heine(6) described Meyerbeer's musical idiom, was basically an eclectic attitude. Trapped in the "spirit of the people" ideology of the late nineteenth century, we modern observers sometimes find it difficult not to use the adjective "eclectic" in a pejorative sense (in the sense of "epigonal"). But in the cosmopolitan Paris of Meyerbeer's day, the term "eclectic" was used to characterize an advanced artistic attitude. Thus, Ernest Beulé, a member of the Institut de France, in his lecture commemorating the recently deceased Meyerbeer as an Institute colleague, expressly defined his historical role as the result of his eclecticism: it was this that made it possible for him, with his four great operas, to raise music to the level of development of the other arts; of course, an art which transcends the limits of epochs and lands was appropriate to the "scientific" level of consciousness of the present, as it manifested itself above all in contemporary French culture.(7) To be sure, the "grand opéra" was as such eclectic, though only in the sense of being a framework for the genre which could be filled in a variety of ways. If Auber and Halévy were to a great extent indebted to the French tradition, to the "opéra comique" or the "tragédie lyrique", so were Rossini, Donizetti, and Verdi to the "melodramma". Meyerbeer, however, created a specific eclectic style which, while conforming to the conditions of "grand opéra" pushed the limitations to its fullest development. At the same time Meyerbeer's operas must be primarily regarded as a personal style and not as a style of the genre. His music, like that of few other composers, has a completely unmistakable "tone" all its own of exotic color and of sharply contrasting clarity. This individuality had already begun to appear in the works of his youth. If one surveys the German and Italian operas of Meyerbeer which precede his French ones, one is impressed by the individuality of the adaptation; even when it only partly succeeds, it foreshadows the later goal. Obviously the young composer made use of foreign idioms at first; however, from the very beginning, there is a conceptual element which stands out as characteristic of Meyerbeer, a calculation which always attempts to relate the individual element to the encompassing whole. It is this intelligible trait which lends the youthful works their unmistakable profile, and distinguishes them from mere imitations. The one person whose significance for him, both for his musical as well as for his general intellectual development, can scarcely be underestimated, was his teacher, the abbé Joseph Vogler, who was similar to him in character, and who encouraged his speculative inclinations and guided him in the direction of musical experimentation. In the first opera by him which was composed under Vogler's influence, Jephthas Gelübde (1812), Meyerbeer already strikes a characteristic tone of religious ecstasy which would reappear in his later operas at the high point of his career.
When Meyerbeer decided to follow Salieri's advice and leave the operatic province of Germany and to betake himself to Paris by way of Italy, he naturally adapted the prevailing opera model of the Rossini period as a framework, but not as a copy. Particularly in regard to the melody, he remained faithful to older ideals, primarily Mozart. With Romilda e Costanza (1817), the first of his operas written for Italy, Meyerbeer already demonstrates, not only complete control of the contemporary idiom of the genre, but at the same time the ability to make it part of his personal style. In each succeeding work this individuality becomes more and more prominent. With his last Italian opera, Il crociato in Egitto (1824), he finally exhausted the possibilities which the genre offered, particularly in regard to dramaturgy, especially in the large tableaus (Introduction; I. Finale, for the first time with two contrasting stage bands). The presentation of ideas in the later historical operas already makes itself felt clearly here, insofar as the action of the characters still determines the dramaturgy, though it appears projected against historical events which function more than as mere background. In this way, through the vivid confrontation of crusaders and Egyptians, the antagonism of two cultures achieves musical and dramatic form; and it is characteristic that the revisions which Meyerbeer made on the work in the following years led to an even clearer contouring of this political and religious opposition through the expansion of the role of Adriano di Montfort, the fanatical Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes. If Meyerbeer went to Italy to learn, it was during that time that he became a teacher. Crociato, whose profound traces have long lain unnoticed in the Italian opera between Bellini and Verdi, shows that Meyerbeer finally found, in the idiom of a alien genre, his own musical language and personal style. With the world-wide success of this single opera, he rose to become the leading composer of Italian opera after Rossini. It is idle to imagine how the "melodramma" would have developed if Meyerbeer had continued along that successful path; but it was not further reform of the Italian opera which was his goal; it was Paris, which had always appeared to him as the Mecca of dramatic music. If Robert le Diable was only a further consistent step of development following Crociato, nevertheless, the distance in conception from the older work was immense. For the first time in his career, in collaboration with capable librettists (besides Scribe, there was Germain Delavigne) and inspired by the awakening cultural climate of Paris, Meyerbeer was able to create for himself a genre structure which was adequate to his artistic conceptions: the grand opera as a drama of ideas. Out of the phantasmagoria of legend, with all the cold chills of frenetic romanticism, there emerged the contours of a drama of humanity, of conflict between good and evil -- contemporary and timeless at the same time. In the two main roles of Robert and Bertram, brilliantly portrayed by Adolphe Nourrit and Nicolas-Prosper Levasseur, we encounter the two types of the contemporary theatre, the "amoral hero" and the "suffering man of evil", for the first time as large romantic characters pulled back and forth between salvation and damnation.
The antithetical dramatic structure, executed with the greatest intensity, made new dimensions of character delineation accessible to the music. Above all, a consistent pattern of tonal color dominated, supported by mnemonic motivic devices which went beyond the easily recognizable model of Weber's Freischütz (1821) in the differentiated way in which they were applied, primarily because of the evident "fragmentation" even of the demonic sphere. With a directness unheard of up to that time, the music evoked dramatic situations, mainly in the much admired convent scene, which seamlessly integrated ballet and pantomime, and in which music, text, and staging blend for the first time to form that "Gesamtkunstwerk" which the contemporary French philosophy of art formulated as its program. Here, as in the other parts of the work, the tableau manifested itself as a new, individualizing formal concept which finally supplanted the number structure which for a long time had been descending into disuse. Although the melody had yet to yield its monopoly as the vehicle of emotional expression, it could, on occasion, be given an even greater role as the vehicle of dramatic situations, for example, in the ethereal "Grâce, grâce"-phrase in Isabelle's cavatina in the big duet in Act IV, "by which the audience a century long had been moved to tears."(8)
With Les Huguenots, Meyerbeer for the first time transferred the pattern of the opera of ideas to an historical subject, the bloody events of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in Paris in August of 1572. Through a highly difficult linkage of the Luther chorale, "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott", which moves through the opera like a quotation, with the personality of the Protestant fighter Marcel, Meyerbeer succeeded in imposing a discourse of ideas concerning the philosophy of history onto the musical and dramatic subject matter: criticism of the historical role of Christianity, whose warring parties -- Catholics and Protestants -- surrendered their religion to considerations of power. Only very indirectly, though discernible through precise analysis, did a liberal-Jewish standpoint, Meyerbeer's own, emerge as the point of departure of that criticism. If the "dramatic system" of the historical opera remained for the most part misunderstood to its full extent (particularly since it soon became customary to shorten or omit Act V, from which alone one can understand the conceptual context), nevertheless it conveyed the modern political flair of the work, in which "progressive" thinkers admired the model of a future form of music drama which made it possible to deal with the broad questions of history and society. On all sides, the appearance of Huguenots was seen not merely as a musical, but above and beyond that, as a cultural event, and it only strengthened the nimbus of the extraordinary which hovered over the work when, in some countries, the censors forbade performances, or allowed them only if a "de-activated" text were substituted.
Above all, it was the mass scenes which contributed to the exceptional reputation of the new opera, and in this regard primarily the great conspiracy scene of Act IV, the "Bénédiction des poignards". Great choral tableaus in French opera had been thoroughly traditional since the revolutionary and post-revolutionary periods (Le Sueur, Spontini), and they also appear in prominent places in the "grand opéra" of Rossini, Auber, and Halévy, but in the Huguenots the choirs acquire for the first time a dramaturgical life of their own as representatives of historical forces and groups: not as an individualized "people" (peuple), but as a destructive "mass" (foule), the dregs of history, as it were. Even if the deeper meaning of the negative connotations of Meyerbeer's mass scenes, in which the experience of anonymous numbers of human beings in the modern metropolis appears to have been put to esthetic use just as much as the collective memory of the pogrom of the believing Jew, was not always fully understood, the scenes nevertheless fascinated by virtue of the revolutionary power of a new kind of dramaturgy. The "grand duo" following the "Blessing of the daggers" showed itself to be no less far-reaching in its effect on the history of the genre, not only because of the exotic luster of the phrase "Tu l'as dit", which oscillates in expression between the emphasis on love and the expectation of death and in which some have claimed to see "Meyerbeer's immortal melody" or "the melody of the century", but also, and indeed primarily because of the dialogic structure of the scene overall, which was to define significantly the form and style of all future duet compositions.
After Les Huguenots, the opera Le Prophète (1849), with which Meyerbeer, after the thirteen-year pause in Paris, once again confirmed his leading role on the opera scene in Europe, constituted the continuation and, essentially, the culmination of his conception of the historical opera. The suggestion that the revolutionary events of the year 1848 had played a role in the selection of the subject (the Anabaptist revolt of 1530) is quite erroneous: Meyerbeer and Scribe (only later did Émile Deschamps join them as co-author of the libretto) had begun their work on the new opera immediately after the completion of Huguenots; in 1840, the score was completed for the moment, but was then profoundly reworked several times. In comparison with its predecessor, Le Prophète was characterized by a greater emphasis on discursive structures; in place of epic expansion came dramatic concentration -- the historic opera was transformed into the opera about history. The concrete historic event becomes a parable about the fate of humanity between guilt and expiation, where history itself appears as the "empire of evil". By this transformation of historical realism into something mythical and fantastic, Le Prophète reveals itself dramaturgically and conceptually as a synthesis of Robert le Diable and Les Huguenots: the historical opera as a romantic "mystery play". Certain motifs of the conceptual structure as well as the figure of the prophet-mother Fidès are derived from contemporary French philosophy of history and religion, but Meyerbeer combined them -- ever the guiding spirit of the overall dramatic plan of the opera -- to a quite individual artistic affirmation of his personal beliefs. With Le Prophète, he succeeded once again in refining his musical language, particularly in the creation of a distinctly gloomy undertone which he himself described as "somber and fanatic". As if to prove that he also knew how to strike a popular tone, he unleashed in the so-called "Ice Skate Ballet" (a traditional winter scene in the style of Breughel) a regular fireworks of melodic and instrumental ideas which endowed this music with lasting fascination, even in the concert hall and in the arrangement of a new ballet (Ashton/Lambert, Les Patineurs, 1937). The cathedral scene, with the confrontation between mother and son, constitutes an achievement of the highest rank; at the same time, it is the visible high point and the dramatic center of the work, imitated for decades in the complete integration of its musical and theatrical components as the unattainable model of a mass scene.
Perhaps Meyerbeer himself sensed that the type of "grand opéra" which he developed in Le Prophète as an historical drama of ideas no longer had the potential for further musical and dramatic evolution; in any case, he continued to work in a sporadic and half-hearted way on an older "grand opéra" project, L'Africaine, which he had begun almost simultaneously with Le Prophète (likewise in collaboration with Scribe), but had determined to be less important in comparison with the Anabaptist opera. The introduction of the new figure of the Portuguese naval hero Vasco da Gama, which in 1851 he instructed Scribe to do, was supposed to serve the purpose "of placing the work on quite new foundations before an historical and noble background"(9). However, since the basic structure of the action in the old Africaine, particularly in the last three acts, remained untouched, this change had the effect -- as would be shown -- of imposing an irreparable fatal flaw on the work at its birth: the plot begins as an historical drama, but ends as a private tragedy. Faced with increasing difficulties, Meyerbeer shifted temporarily to another scene; fulfilling an old wish of his youth, he produced a work for the first time in the genre of the "opéra comique", L'Étoile du Nord (1854), to a libretto by Scribe, for which he used substantial parts of the Singspiel Ein Feldlager in Schlesien, which he had composed for the re-opening of the Berlin Opera House in 1844. His success encouraged a further work in this genre, Le Pardon de Ploërmel (1859), with a libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré. Later known under the title of Dinorah, it was his last complete opera. It was a virtuoso game combining the musical and scenic topography of romantic opera and romantic ballet (the "shadow aria" as an adaptation of the "shadow dance") which defined the three-act work as a type of pastorale and an exceptional case in the history of the genre.
Only in 1860 did Meyerbeer resume work energetically on the incomplete "grand opéra" for which he had now chosen the title of Vasco de Gama, and which he brought to a provisional conclusion. When he died suddenly, shortly before the beginning of rehearsals of the "opéra", everything (up to the ballet) had been completed, but some numbers were extant in several versions. What was missing was that final revision of the score which Meyerbeer was accustomed to do on the basis of his experience with the rehearsals, and which could still result in quite drastic changes in the structure of the work. François-Joseph Fétis, who assumed this responsibility as a substitute (and who restored the original title L'Africaine) justifiably refrained from all substantial changes. The deficient tightness of conception, to be sure, did not affect the success of the posthumous premiere (1865) in the slightest, indeed it was perhaps even helpful; after all, the partial departure from the genre of the historical opera and the turn to the "drame lyrique" were consonant with the new trend in taste, as was the exotic subject of the work. As a work which is a transition between these two traditions, L'Africaine introduces the opera of the "Belle Époque".
The history of Meyerbeer's influence is in large part the history of opera of the nineteenth century. His oeuvre influenced that of other composers in very different form and intensity. There is, first of all, the adaptations -- some even copies -- of individual scenes. Taken individually, these are only superficial instances, but taken altogether, these cases are proof of the immense imagination and impressive formative power of their model. As was the case with few other composers, Meyerbeer understood how to structure distinctive musical and dramatic scenes in an almost archetypal way, perhaps most persuasively in the area of the tableau, e.g., the conspiracy scene, the great presentation scene, the catastrophe scene. More comprehensive and profound was Meyerbeer's influence on the vocabulary and syntax of the music drama of the nineteenth century. The innovations which his work introduced primarily in the areas of melody, harmony, and instrumentation continued to be of influence, like the techniques he developed to combine the individual musical elements into a dramatic whole, especially the dramaturgy of tonal color, handling of motifs and the structuring of tableaus. In this way, Meyerbeer was the founder of that universal language of music drama which by the end of the nineteenth century imbued the national and regional operatic traditions of Europe and America with a new cosmopolitan spirit.
Finally, Meyerbeer's oeuvre also defined the history of opera genres. Not only in France, Italy, and Germany, but also precisely in the new national opera cultures of northern, eastern, and southern Europe just emerging at this time, did the historical opera, with only modest regional variations, assume prominence as the genre model of the various national operas; only toward the end of that century was it superseded in this role by the music drama. In so saying, we can dispose of the question about the relationship of the historical opera and the music drama of Wagner. That they both could follow one another in their reception in all of Europe without a noticeable breach points to an affinity which the historians of music have long been successful in repressing in their historical consciousness, but which was, even in the late nineteenth century, indisputable for numerous critics (among them, significantly, even opponents of Wagner). As certain as it is that the compositional style of Wagner is different from that of Meyerbeer, the conceptual similarity of the two genres they created is just as evident. It is grounded in the musical and theatrical presentation of an historical and philosophical idea, which Meyerbeer realized for the first time in the historical opera, and which Wagner continued in the music drama with other textual and musical means.
Notes:
(1) Letter from Heine to Giacomo Meyerbeer dated 24 May 1842, in: Giacomo Meyerbeer. Briefwechsel und Tagebücher, Vol. 3, eds. Heinz and Gudrun Becker (Berlin, 1975), p. 403.
(2) Letter from Le Sueur to Meyerbeer dated 24 November 1831, in: Giacomo Meyerbeer. Briefwechsel und Tagebücher, Vol. 2, ed. Heinz Becker (Berlin, 1970), p. 156.
(3) Richard Wagner, "On Giacomo Meyerbeer's 'Huguenots'" (around 1840), in: Richard Wagner, Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. 7, Aufsätze zur Musikgeschichte 1, ed. Julius Kapp (Leipzig, n.d.), p. 54. According to an as yet unpublished diary entry of Meyerbeer (24 November 1851, in: Giacomo Meyerbeer. Briefwechsel und Tagebücher, Vol. 5, ed. Sabine Henze-Döhring, in preparation), to whom Wagner had sent his article, this had the title of "On the standpoint of the music of Meyerbeer".
(4) Ibid., p. 55.
(5) Letters to his wife dated 10 March and 20 May 1836, in: Giacomo Meyerbeer. Briefwechsel und Tagebücher, Vol. 2, ed. Heinz Becker (Berlin, 1970), pp. 513 and 527.
(6) Heinrich Heine, "On the French stage: Confidential letters to August Lewald," 9th Letter (1837), in: Heinrich Heine, Sämtliche Schriften, Vol. 5, ed. Klaus Briegleb (Munich-Vienna, 1976), p. 344.
(7) Ernest Beulé, Éloge de Meyerbeer, prononcé dans la scène publique du 28ème octobre 1865 (Paris, 1865), p. 3ff.
(8) Carl Dahlhaus, Die Musik des 19. Jahrhunderts, Neues Handbuch der Musikwissenschaft, Vol. 5 (Wiesbaden: Laaber, 1980), p. 108.
(9) Letter to Scribe dated 27 October 1851, in: Heinz and Gudrun Becker, Giacomo Meyerbeer. Ein Leben in Briefen, Taschenbücher zur Musikwissenschaft, Vol. 85 (Wilhelmshaven, 1983), p. 196.