Despite reveling in its lustrous music, ballet, and five-act grand opera structure, from its first performance, just a year after the Revolutions of 1848, critics and audiences also understood Le Prophète as composer Meyerbeer’s and librettist Eugène Scribe’s historically based morality lesson about the corrosive effects of intolerance, working-class gullibility, and the attractions to and abuse of power. Sound familiar?

No [opera] composer [except maybe Anton Rubinstein and Fromental Halévy -FLE] has suffered more cruelly from the vicissitudes of musical taste than Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791-1864). Acclaimed in his lifetime as the peer of Beethoven and Michel­angelo and deeply admired by Berlioz, Verdi, and other eminent contemporaries, he fell victim in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries to a violent reaction that led to the virtual banishment of his operas from the international repertory by 1940. Only recently has it become possible to view him dispassionately and to recognize in him an artist who, though undoubtably flawed, remains immensely interesting and vital. (John Roberts in his notes for the Metropolitan Opera revival in 1977). Essay in full HERE.

Earlier, the Met had inked 56 performances of the opera between 1885 and 1928. More recently, Zurich had produced it in 1962, Berlin’s Deutsche Oper in 1966, and Vienna in 1998. But the Met revival of 1977 (with Marilyn Horne, James McCracken, and Jerome Hines) seemingly inspired not only the performances in Karlsruhe 2015, Toulouse 2017 [on YouTube HERE ], and Deutsche Oper Berlin 2020, but more importantly the scholarly critical edition from 2011. It can also be heard in Mark Elder’s new recording issued but a month ago.

For Bard’s performances at the Sosnoff Theater, the first in America in almost 50 years, Music Director Leon Botstein  has thanked Stage Director Christian Räth and his team; the scholars who put together the 2011 critical edition of Le Prophète; and to Mark Everist, the distinguished musicologist who helped create a historically valid but persuasive version of a work that has many disparate options and variants. [This version included the solid overture which Meyerbeer had apparently jettisoned before the premiere (and was lost until the recent rediscoveries), but relegated the ballet (partially on roller skates originally) to a mostly ignored wind band arrangement in the lobby of the Sosnoff Theater during the first intermission. The unfortunate players apparently couldn’t compete with the free champagne being offered outside the hall on a glorious summer evening.]

With Friday’s opening-night curtain up, the overture gave a stirring precis of the entire show; Jean and his imagined demonic angels mimed the dream-vision scene which would be sung later as a portend. After the expected tender, short orchestral prelude with a most liquid extended oboe solo, flutes and strings introduce the chorus of vassals (before they are MAGAfied by a manipulative trio of Anabaptists and the self-serving false prophet). Act One begins.

Anabaptists incite a revolt among the peasants ostensibly to free themselves from tyranny, but in fact, to introduce a new tyranny by a supposedly religiously pure minority. The orphan Berthe wants to marry Jean, for which she requires Count Oberthal’s permission. Since Oberthal finds Berthe too appetizing to deny for himself, she and Fidès, her mother-in-law to be, are instead arrested. Berthe manages to flee to Jean. Jean accepts Oberthal’s offer to save his mother from execution by giving up Berthe, whom the soldiers take away. Stirred by vengeance and ambition, Jean joins the Anabaptists as a new prophet. They manage to conquer the town of Münster where Berthe is supposed to have fled. Berthe and Fidès believe that the prophet has killed Jean. After Jean’s magnificent coronation scene, he disowns his mother before a suspicious crowd to save himself.  When Berthe discovers that the conflicted megalomaniac Jean is posing as a prophet who was God’s son (and was not of woman born), she commits suicide. Fidès forgives him, despite his having denied her. Still wanting to take revenge on Oberthal, Jean sets fire to the saltpeter, iron, and sulfur under the dungeon of the imperial castle after locking in both followers and enemies. In doing so he kills himself, his entourage, and Fidès. Complete Synopsis HERE

We begin our account of the production by acknowledging Leon Botstein’s many roles. As a sterling advocate for neglected but worthy composers, he has once again pointed audiences and opera companies to a work which deserves an important place in the canon. As a friend of the players, the singers, and the audience, he has movingly worked a rewarding tale into our collective souls.

Meyerbeer’s music possesses the flair of Rossini, the drama of Verdi, the emotional juice of verismo, and something of Wagner’s Leitmotif method in the multiple appearances of themes such as the “Ad nos, ad salutarem undam,” which Liszt famously fantasized and fugued upon at the organ. [It’s interesting that a Jewish composer has out-menaced the truly scary Dies Irae, which Liszt enlarged into his Totentanz]. Scribe’s libretto tells an ever-recurring tale of love, revenge and cupidity, as it drills into us the moral to beware of false prophets: “Your scepter is a weapon and your laws are crimes.”

In his apparent mission of stressing the timelessness of the message, Director Christian Räth, has somewhat confused the action, variously costuming his players in garbs from every period from medieval déshabille to cocktail party contemporary. Along the way we saw scenes evocative of Nazi roundups of Jews, Ellis Island arrivals, Russian revolutionaries, and marching, helmeted, 20^th-century soldiers. Costume Designer Mattie Ullrich even dressed Jean in an Elvis suit with silver chains. Were we seeing soldiers of an enemy, religious votaries, or Jean’s own crusaders? What were we to think, for instance, when Jeans asked his armed legion to raise their swords against him if he were a false prophet. The groupies could only point their fingers. Some misunderstandings could have been avoided had the surtitles identified and placed each scene.

Räth posited a more addled than expected mendicant, whom we eventually identified as Fidès, by having her push a 1950s baby carriage with an imaginary infant Jean, or was it the rolled-up bloody rags left behind as supposed proof of Jean’s demise? We could understand her compelling ode to a dead child without needing to see symbolic, tangible proof…but why a baby, since we understood that Fidès had assumed Jean had died as an adult.  The only libretto I could find mentions no baby, nor did I see one at the Met in 1977 or in the 2017 Toulouse production on YouTube. Was this some sly reference to Gounod’s Faust?

Berthe appears in the dungeon with a lantern in those earlier productions, (think of it as Tosca’s chandelier, another essential stage icon) with which she threatens to ignite the powder magazine below, yet in this version she does not carry any fire. How then is an unfamiliar viewer to understand that Jean’s subsequent business of picking up and tossing a lump of red fabric is meant to signify the fusing of a time bomb? And why then does Berthe commit suicide mostly offstage (though viewable through the forced perspective of a cruciform keyhole)? That miscalculation robbed the opera of one of the dramatic highpoints.

These gripes aside, I can happily salute a splendid night of impressive musical theater. Räth’s ingenious unit set starred three, 30ft.-tall, peripatetic, embossed leather bibles (indeed bibles of various scales and Anabaptist texts made signal visual statements) moved about the stage revealing more and more theatrical properties over the nearly four-hour long show. Working seamlessly together, Rick Fisher’s lighting design and Elaine McCarthy’s vivid and original projections (replete with medieval texts, swirling clouds, gibbets, and battle scenes) managed to turn these dominating elements into ramparts (topped by sinister figures as in Räth’s 2019 Bard take on  Korngold’s Das Wunder der Heliane reviewed HERE), landscapes, dungeon walls, tavern enclosures, enclosed balconies, and coronation columns. These monumental books solved the problem of how to evoke the scale of grand opera within a summer festival budget. We always had something interesting to take in visually from these books which seemed to participate as sinister winged supers manipulated them. Would they had toppled in the final conflagration as the stage directions indicate, but that would have required more resources than what was available. Maybe burning texts could have rained down at the final curtain.

Botstein engaged superior players and singers. His American Symphony Orchestra made a fine, large, and articulate sound in the dry hall, though solos bounced around from various reflective surfaces. The wind soloists always poignantly and pungently characterized their lines, the brass blasted with inerrant martial swagger, and the strings approached sumptuousness. Botstein’s command of balance saw to it that the singers’ pianissimos could carry, (Meyerbeer gave his singers tremendous scope by silencing the orchestra entirely for some delicious unaccompanied coloratura episodes) but Botstein also wisely chose stentorian singers who could project over bold tuttis…and ‘bold’ was the watchword for the entire experience.

Meyerbeer and Scribe astutely delved into the psychology of each role, giving the singer-actors scope to evoke the stirring cauldron of conflicts in their stage personæ. Jean developed from a mother-loving simpleton to a vicious avenger and back again. Berthe and Fidès could be both steadfast in love and determined in revenge. He tasked the three Anabaptists to display guile, murderous rage, dubious religious certitude, and cowardly self-preservation. The townspeople, vassals, votaries, soldiers, and revelers, as embodied by the powerful and confident Bard Festival Chorale, showed tremendous command and power.

We enjoyed the interplay of the three Anabaptist villains, though they could have portrayed themselves with more menace. They often matched tones so we could compare the profound basso of Wei Wu with the very well-formed baritone of Harold Wilson and the lighter tenor of Brian Vu. As Oberthal, Zachay Altman not only forced himself somewhat vulgarly on Berthe, but he also forced his bari-tones a bit too relentlessly. Among the principal singers, surely Jennifer Feinstein most melted hearts; she stole the show as Fidès, with an agile and back-row-carrying mezzo that she wielded with Azucena-like fury as well as with point-perfect ornamentation. Berthe, as voiced by Amina Edris, matched her trills, vibrato and ornamentation perfectly in their final duet. Edris’s instrument focused like a pinspot, and she could also act. Robert Watson took some time to work himself into Jean’s heroics, sounding a bit indisposed in his initial appearances. His high notes warbled worrisomely, and his pianissimo head voice did not match the rest of his timbres. From the third act on, his vocal powers having returned to him, he made convincing cases both for the character’s hubris and loving renewal.

The highly recommended but pretty-much sold-out show runs through next weekend. Tickets and particulars HERE.

Lee Eiseman is the publisher of the Intelligencer

Captions for  photos by Andy Henderson from top to bottom:

Robert Watson (Jean de Leyde) and the dancers of Le prophète, Center: Robert Watson (Jean de Leyde)
L–R: Brian Vu (Jonas), Harold Wilson (Zacharie), and Wei Wu (Mathisen), Jennifer Feinstein (Fidès), Amina Edris (Berthe) and the company

Le Prophète
Composed by Giacomo Meyerbeer
Libretto by Eugène Scribe and Émile Deschamps

New Production
Sung in French with English supertitles
American Symphony Orchestra
Conductor, Leon Botstein, Music Director

Bard Festival Chorale
Chorus Master, James Bagwell
Director, Christian Räth
Set Design, Christian Räth and Daniel Unger
Costume Design, Mattie Ullrich
Choreography, Catherine Galasso
Lighting Design, Rick Fisher
Projection Design, Elaine McCarthy
Hair/Makeup Design, Anika SeituSupertitle Translation and Design Corinne Hayes

Cast:
Jean de Leyde, Robert Watson
Fidès, Jennifer Feinstein
Berthe, Amina Edris
Jonas, Brian Vu
Mathisen, Wei Wu
Zacharie,Harold Wilson
Oberthal, Zachary Altman