Giacomo MEYERBEER (1791-1864)
Alimelek oder Wird und Gast, Comic Opera in Two Acts (1813)(1814 revision
used)
Alimelek- Jan Kobow (tenor); Harun–al-Raschid Lars Woldt (bass); Irene-Britta Stallmeister (soprano); Giafar-Timothy Oliver (tenor); Ibrahim-Giuseppe Pennini (tenor); Servant-Alexander Koller (bass); Captain of the Guards-Peter Goldner (bass);
Chamber Choir of Europe, Württemberg Philharmonie Reutlingen/Ola Rudner
rec. live 9-10 October 2010, Festhalle, Bad Urach, Germany at the Herbstliche Musiktage Bad Urach
Booklet with notes and libretto in German with English translation.
Premiere Recording
STERLING CDO1125/1126-2 [55:48 + 46:59]
Giacomo Meyerbeer is the only composer that I can think of who composed for three different and equally important eras of 19th century music. His works straddle the German Romantic school, Italian bel-canto and French grand opera.
Alimelek, to use the shortened title, is the first opera that he composed and received its world premiere in Stuttgart in January of 1813. The libretto was based on The Tale of the Sleeper and the Waker from Volume One of Burton’s translations of “One Thousand and One Nights”. The first
performance in Stuttgart was not a success but Meyerbeer believed in the work enough to revise it for performance in Vienna (1814) under the tile Die bieden Kalifen (The Two Caliphs). The Vienna revision, which is the version used for this recording, was heavily criticized even before its opening night because it was thought that the story of a Prince who is being visited and put upon by 12 “Freeloaders” was a criticism of the Congress of Vienna which was underway at the time. This, and some issues with the singers unfortunately doomed the Vienna version to just a single performance.
Meyerbeer’s friend Carl Maria von Weber had also composed an opera on the same subject, Abu Hassan (Munich 1811) but he thought highly enough of Meyerbeer’s opera to stage productions of it in Prague (1815) and Dresden (1819). Thereafter it disappeared altogether until this concert was given in 2010, paired with its sister opera, Abu Hassan.
The plot concerns the wealthy young muslim Alimelek, who lives a somewhat reckless life with his runaway love Irene. He is saddled with a group of freeloading friends who are flouting the muslim laws enough to have the Caliph of Bagdad arrive incognito to investigate him. The Caliph happens to be the very person whom Irene ran away from. The Caliph forms a plan to drug Alimelek with some forbidden wine and remove him to his own palace, where after waking him up, he arranges an elaborate deception to convince Alimelek that he is now the Caliph. All of this is in order to determine how much punishment is warranted for stealing his intended, Irene. In the end all ends happily as the Caliph forgives both Irene and Alimelek.
For his first opera, Meyerbeer’s compositional style shows a remarkable level of maturity and craft. The music shows a strong influence of Turkish mania, which was beginning to wane by 1812. Meyerbeer’s opera is a singspiel which puts it in direct comparison with Mozart’s
Die Entführing aus dem Serail. The Turkish aspects of the overture and elsewhere are certainly influenced by Mozart but I must ask why there is so much Istanbul and Janissary-like percussive effects to the music when we are actually in Bagdad? Presumably there was no European musical language available to depict other Middle Eastern cultures until Rimsky-Korsakov got around to composing
Shehérezade; as Félicien David’s disappointingly banal symphonic ode,
Le désert gives ample proof of. Even so, Meyerbeer shows a fully developed plasticity of form, particularly in regards to his innovative use of the orchestra, a gift which would serve him well throughout his career. The musical numbers are quite well integrated with the story as the opening double chorus of the Freeloaders demonstrates. Act Two opens with another chorus, this time for a group of slaves, which is even more germane to the action, and it has some delightful Schubertian qualities about it before evolving into a Beethoven-like conclusion. Interestingly, there is a wonderful drinking song for the title character, which aside from being strictly forbidden for Muslims, incorporates some really delightful scoring for the woodwind section.
The live concert performance, that was recorded here by the German Südwestrundfunk, bids fair to be the only recording of this opera we will ever see published. Luckily it is a decently produced achievement in no small part due to the care and attention of Conductor Ola Rudner who paces things with style and verve. The Württemberg orchestra do full justice to the lovely scoring job that Meyerbeer gave them. The sound is a little recessed at times but it is very evocative of the theater and quite natural in balance. Jan Kobow as Alimelek has an attractive, gentle voice which lacks a bit of volume in the upper register but he is very fleet in dispatching the coloratura of his scenes. Britta Stallmeister as his love Irene, sings with a basic vocal timbre that is not unattractive but her tone tends to swell on sustained notes until it shatters into bouts of unevenness. Lars Woldt is a sonorous and warm sounding Caliph Al-Raschid and Timothy Oliver delivers a pleasing account of Giafar, Alimek’s confidant.
In a time when good documentation for a recording seems like ancient history, Sterling has led the way with not one, but two booklets. The first is an informative history of the opera, and the second is the complete libretto including all of the dialogue with full English translation. There is a great deal of dialogue in this singspiel, and much of it has been recorded. Sterling is really to be commended for printing the dialogue in its complete form with clear indications of the sections that were unperformed.
While Alimelek will never be considered Meyerbeer’s masterpiece, it certainly has enough of interest in it to deserve an occasional airing. This recording has been long in preparation but fills an important gap in the Meyerbeer canon. I would suggest snapping up a copy while one is able to.
Mike Parr
