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The première of Meyerbeer\'s Le Prophète in the Hungarian National Theatre on June 12th 1850 was an event of unprecedented importance in the short history of professional opera in the Hungarian language. In my paper I am going to demonstrate the role of the orchestra in the success of this work. I shall combine this with the presentation of other outstanding aspects of the performance so that we shall be able to fairly judge the orchestra\'s contribution to the success.

La thèse propose d’étudier l’orchestre de l’Académie de musique à travers Robert le diable (1831) de Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791-1864), l’une des œuvres les plus représentées dans le répertoire de l’opéra français romantique et dont la diffusion hors de France fut sans précédent. D’une part, l’orchestre est envisagé comme une entité sociale et économique à l’intérieur même de l’institution théâtrale. Il apparaît ainsi l’image d’une structure composée de musiciens d’expérience avec une recherche constante d’excellence de l’orchestre mais dont les disparités (salaires, conditions d’engagement et d’exercice) entre les différents membres de l’orchestre se révèlent être fortes. En tant que corps sonnant, d’autre part, l’étude de l’orchestre éclaire l’instrumentarium et les techniques d’orchestration de Robert le diable. Cette approche analytique offre la possibilité de cerner au mieux, d’un côté les spécificités musicales d’une œuvre représentative du répertoire de l’opéra français romantique, et de l’autre les procédés stylistiques de Meyerbeer qui par certains aspects préfigurent les drames verdiens et wagnériens / The thesis is here to study the musical academy’s orchestra by considering Robert le diable (1831) by Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791-1864), one of the most performed pieces of works in the repertory of the French romantic opera and whose diffusion outside France was unprecedented. First, the orchestra is considered as a social and economical entity within the theatrical institution. We can consider the image of a structure composed of experienced musicians doted with a constant search of excellence but whose disparities (salaries, job’s opportunities) between the various members of the orchestra are very strong. Now, as an entity or a musical structure, the study enlightens the instrumentarium and the techniques of orchestration in Robert le diable. That analytical approach allows us to better comprehend the musical specificities of a work symbolising the French romantic opera, and the stylistic processes of Meyerbeer which, by some aspects, prefigure the Verdian and Wagnerian dramas

Giacomo Meyerbeer (September 5, 1791-May 2, 1864) was one of the most celebrated composers in the 19th century and the leading exponent of French grand opera. Meyerbeer's operas were immensely popular; for example, his opera Robert le diable was performed 100 times in Paris alone and was featured on the programs of 77 theatres in ten countries, all within three years of its première. Meyerbeer's collaboration with Eugène Scribe, who was the most famous librettist of the century, began with Robert le diable (1831) and their partnership continued for the creation of Les Huguenots (1836), Le prophète (1849), and L'Africaine (1865). Meyerbeer's larger-than-life operas defined the genre of French grand opera. Meyerbeer was a serious, dedicated composer who composed mostly for the stage, but he also wrote sacred music, choral music, instrumental music, and songs. Meyerbeer composed over 50 songs, mostly mélodies and lieder that were translated and published in both German and French. He also composed some Italian canzonette. Meyerbeer's songs are rarely performed in recitals, however, they have originality, beauty, intensity, and theatricality and are worthy to be explored, performed, and cherished. His operas featured unconventional and sensational scenes, tragic love stories set in the middle of the whirlwind of political and religious clash, and bigger-than-life sets to transport his audience to exotic, faraway places. Did Meyerbeer lend the same magical touch to his songs? Was he able to create the same story line of epic portion as he did in his grand operas? My goal is to provide an introduction to the Meyerbeer song repertoire which as a result will encourage more voice teachers, students, and professional performers to incorporate Meyerbeer's outstanding, yet rarely performed songs into their recital programs. In the charts, Meyerbeer's songs are organized by three language groups: Italian, French, and German, and are organized alphabetically by title within each language group. Each chart has eight columns: number; song title; lyricist; year of composition; range; additional available singing translations; difficulty level; and comments. Six songs in total, with two songs from each language group, are chosen and analyzed to explore Meyerbeer’s songs in depth. The selected songs are from various points of Meyerbeer’s career, and are of different levels of difficulties, topics, lengths, and moods. / Music Performance

Paris, et plus largement la France, ont préoccupé Wagner tout au long de sa vie. Entre 1830 et 1861, il ne séjourne pas moins de sept fois en France et même lorsqu’il se trouve en Allemagne, puis exilé en Suisse, il garde toujours Paris à l’esprit. Bien que Wagner se soit toujours présenté avant tout comme un Allemand et qu’il se soit toujours défini comme un compositeur allemand, la France, sorte de miroir dans lequel il ne cesse de considérer sa patrie, lui sert de référence pour définir une nouvelle Allemagne essentiellement artistique et appelée à devenir sur ce plan le modèle de l’Europe. Cette thèse se propose d’analyser les relations de Wagner et de la France entre 1830 et 1861 sous ce nouvel éclairage et d’étudier la réception française des œuvres wagnériennes. Cette dernière repose avant tout sur un malentendu et trouve son origine non pas dans la musique ou les écrits du compositeur, mais dans les différents articles de Liszt qui paraissent à partir de 1849 / Throughout his lifetime, Richard Wagner was preoccupied by Paris, in particular, and by France, in general. Between 1830 and 1861 — the period upon which this thesis concentrates — he went to Paris on no fewer than seven occasions. Although Wagner always introduced himself as above all a German, and although he always considered himself to be a German composer, still, France—as a kind of mirror in which he never ceased to see the reflection of his homeland—always served him as a crucial point of reference as he attempted to define a new and essentially artistic Germany that was destined in this sense to become a model for all of Europe. It is in this new light, then, that I propose, in this thesis, to analyze the relations between Wagner and France and to study French reception of Wagner’s creations. That reception, based above all on a kind of misunderstanding, finds its beginnings neither in the composer’s music nor in the composer’s writings, but rather in Franz Liszt’s various articles on Wagner that began to appear in 1849

The première of Meyerbeer\''s Le Prophète in the Hungarian National Theatre on June 12th 1850 was an event of unprecedented importance in the short history of professional opera in the Hungarian language. In my paper I am going to demonstrate the role of the orchestra in the success of this work. I shall combine this with the presentation of other outstanding aspects of the performance so that we shall be able to fairly judge the orchestra\''s contribution to the success.

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Current and historical methods of metric analysis often assume that the first beat of a metric group is stronger than the second. This, however, is not the case in all repertoires. For example, a study by William Rothstein (2011) demonstrates that Verdi’s midcentury operas often place emphasis on even-numbered beats. This paper shows this metric trend to be even more prevalent in a corpus of 208 nineteenth-century operatic excerpts, (1809-1859). I present a formal model that classifies phrases according to anacrusis length and prosodic accent, showing where large-scale metric accents fall within a phrase. This model produces three metric types which align with Rosthstein’s (2011) previous work. Compositional and historical features (e.g., language, premiere date, librettist, etc.) were tracked alongside type in order to determine whether preferences for certain metric forms were more prevalent in certain contexts. This indeed was the case. For instance, use of even-emphasis meter increases over time, even though odd-emphasis meter remains most common. Individual composers also show a significantly distinguishable preference toward each type of meter. These results not only confirm that the highest concentration of even-emphasis meter occurs in Verdi’s midcentury operas (Rothstein 2011), but that Verdi is the primary user of this type overall. I also demonstrate that language and composer nationality do not significantly affect an excerpt's metric type; only Verdi shows distinction in these areas. With this finding, I argue against using nationalist language to identify metric types and instead propose suggestions that better-reflect an updated understanding of nineteenth-century metric conventions.