He had in his youth written a Daughter of Jephtha, a mediocre work indeed; but he now realised that these high poetic sources, these purified and ennobled materials were not for him. He had, I say, this modesty as regards himself. He shewed it also (and, alas, not without some reason) on behalf of the kind of public that the political revolutions of France, the prevalent social confusion and romantic jumble of ideas, had prepared for a musician of the year 1831. What he expected of Scribe, or what Scribe offered him was heavy historic melodrama conceived in a spirit of trivial romanticism, and overloaded with contrivances and special scenic or decorative machinery, This last element of the combination was not after all the worst, being the most capable of inspiring in Meyerbeer a relatively sincere music.
I do not deny that there are in Scribe's "books" some elements less worthless than others I indicate his average quality.[1]
III
Nothing could be more instructive than the metamorphoses of Robert the Devil. It was conceived first as comic opera, then as a fantastic ballet, and lastly as grand opera. The two former destinations would have been more suitable for one of those naughtily
- ↑ The Jewess of Halévy, which belongs to 1835, and is therefore a year earlier than the Huguenots, also gives us heavy pseudo-historic melodrama without humanity or poetry. That too is by Eugène Scribe, and might well have been by Eugène Sue. But its music is far more sincere than Meyerbeer's. Without liking its style one can acknowledge its feeling and power and here and there its touching and graceful quality. Speaking generally Halévy's work seems to me to have become the object of more contempt than it deserves. There are some really fine portions in the Musketeer's Guido, and the Queen of Cyprus.
