The Ratio of Content and Entertainment in the Operas of Giacomo Meyerbeer

Abstract

The object of the study is the work of the French composer of the XIX century Giacomo Meyerbeer, the subject of the study is the informative and entertaining components of his work. The most famous works of the famous maestro are used for analysis: "Robert the Devil", "Huguenots", "The Prophet", "Dinora". The author examines the ratio of "meaningful" and "entertaining" components in the dramatic and musical construction of the opera from the viewpoint of the traditional art of the XIX century installation "Entertaining - to teach!". The aim of the study is to correct the thesis about entertainment as the main drawback of Meyerbeer's operas, since all works of stage art, including his contemporaries, cannot do without an entertainment component. The main conclusion of the study is that the meaningful, instructive side in Meyerbeer's works is formally preserved, which, at first glance, makes the reproaches of his critics meaningless. However, upon closer examination, it turns out that the content of the operas is emasculated, reduced to the level of platitudes and cliches, becomes contradictory and even ridiculous, while the entertainment side is strengthened and becomes the leading one. Thus, the reproach of entertainment against Meyerbeer should be corrected: their defect is not that they entertain, but that they lose a meaningful component. This model of the ratio of entertainment and content will later be used by modern mass art.