Giacomo Meyerbeer, was ‘the most frequently performed opera composer during the nineteenth century, linking Mozart and Wagner’. His life and achievements are well-documented in this piece.
“On Monday evening died, in Paris, Meyerbeer, the eminent German composer. The deceased was born in Berlin on the 5th September, 1794, and consequently at the time of his death was nearly 70 years of age. As a child he was extremely precocious and his musical talent came to him so early, that when only seven years old he was celebrated, and at nine a German critic spoke of him as one of the best pianists of Berlin. Under less favourable circumstances the lad would doubtless have been prematurely brought before the public as a prodigy, to contradict, perhaps, in manhood, the promises of his youth. But his father, James Beer, a Jew banker, was very wealthy, and Giacomo Meyerbeer, as the composer afterwards called himself, Italianising his name, only appeared occasionally, principally at amateur concerts, and had plenty of opportunities afforded him for study. With what result he availed himself of them is known throughout the world. Meyerbeer did not, however, at once obtain a high position in music. His first opera, ‘Jephtha’s Daughter’ was represented at Munich in 1813 with but indifferent success, but the numerous works he afterwards produced, and which extended over nearly the whole range of musical composition, secured for him a wide reputation, and proved that his talents were of no common order. Of these productions the ‘Crociato in Egitt0,’ produced in Venice in 1825, may be said to have laid the foundation of his European fame. In 1831 he produced his grand work, ‘Robert the Devil,’ and henceforth Meyerbeer was recognised as a master. The ‘Hugenots’ followed in 1836, and the ‘Prophéte’ in 1849, both operas at once taking that commanding position on the lyric stage which they have ever since maintained. ‘L’Etoile du Nord,’ a work in a different style, but distinguished by the same charm of genius, followed in 1854, and the ‘Pardon de Ploermel’ still more recently. It had long been known that the deceased composer had finished another work,’L’Africaine,’ and that his scrupulous, and perhaps fastidious, anxiety to secure for it a satisfactory interpretation has alone kept it from the public. Its production may now, it is to be presumed, be looked for at no distant date.”
The Stamford Mercury, 6th May, 1864.