History, of which Giacomo Meyerbeer was fond, has yet to make up its mind about his music. In the mid-19th century Meyerbeer's epic operas were deemed the greatest ever written, and any composer who wanted to make good had to challenge him on his own terms. That Verdi and Wagner both succeeded in doing so was one factor in the decline of his reputation.
The other was nationalism. German-Jewish by birth, Meyerbeer trained in Italy before taking Paris by storm. Anti-semitism accompanied his every move in life and clouded his achievement in the years after his death.
Margherita d'Anjou, revived by Opera Rara after a century of neglect, dates from his Italian period. Typically, it depicts real and fictional characters in a historical convulsion, in this instance the Wars of the Roses. Margherita is better known to us as the traumatised Margaret, wife of Henry VI in Shakespeare's history plays. Meyerbeer presents her as a voracious warrior queen, who took the Norman Duke Lavarenne as her lover the moment Henry was in his grave. Meanwhile, Gloucester - the future Richard III - is hunting them down.
There's a twist, however: the opera suddenly swerves towards Twelfth Night. Isaura, Lavarenne's wife, arrives disguised as an orderly, accompanied by Michele, a comically sad doctor. Lavarenne and Isaura develop a relationship similar to that between Orsino and Viola. Michele's world-weary humour, meanwhile, derives from Shakespeare's Feste.
Meyerbeer's Italian operas are often dismissed as imitations of Rossini, though the score set a precedent for much that followed. There is a slow accumulation of musical pressure that gradually draws you in. The vocal writing is extreme and the orchestration sombre, avoiding Italianate light throughout.
Opera Rara have done the piece proud. Annick Massis's Margherita and Bruce Ford's Lavarenne express desire and ambition in coloratura of lethal precision. Isaura is played by the wonderful Irish mezzo Patricia Bardon, heart-stopping in grief and bringing the house down with her ecstatic, difficult final aria in which sorrow gives way to elation. Fabio Previati is touchingly funny as Michele, while the young Latvian baritone Pauls Putnins is a sinister Gloucester. Only Alastair Miles disappoints, lacking dramatic fire as Margherita's disaffected general. David Parry's conducting is immaculate and the London Philharmonic is on blistering form. Gripping stuff - but whether it will put Meyerbeer back on the map remains to be seen.
