Marc Minkowski is a master of period practice. Over several decades, the French conductor has brought countless works by the likes of Handel, Rameau, Gluck and Grétry back into the repertoire. Now he’s doing the same for Meyerbeer with a breath-taking new recording of the composer’s breakthrough opera, Robert le Diable. A romantic tale of skulduggery and devilish doings, it chilled and thrilled Parisian audiences with its notorious ballet for a convent-full of dead nuns who literally rise from their graves. Clive Paget caught up with him to talk about the composer’s strengths and weaknesses, doing Meyerbeer justice today, and what he’d like to do next.
Meyerbeer’s music was unfashionable for a lot of the 20th century. Why was that, and why are we more welcoming of his music now?
Well, unfashionable, but maybe there were also some racial problems. I met the great-great-granddaughter of Mr. Meyerbeer when I was in Berlin, whose name is now shortened to Beer, She explained [they had to] during the bad years of the 20th century. It’s like Halévy, for all these people, it was not so easy.
Marc Minkowski. Photo © Georges...
Comments
Log in to join the conversation.