“Jewishness”

In his introduction to the recent English translation of Meyerbeer’s diaries, Robert Letellier describes Berlioz as an “unassailable hero of modern musical political correctness.” For Letellier the remark is sarcastic, made when in the course of a passionate plea for the reexamination of Meyerbeer’s place in music history, he lumps Berlioz with Heine, Schumann, and Wagner, as villains responsible for a century of denigration, neglect, and misunderstanding of Meyerbeer’s work. Berlioz is described as contemptuous of Meyerbeer and is castigated—solely on the grounds of a much-quoted reference to Meyerbeer’s “snake-like flexibility”—for having contributed to his reputation of untrustworthiness. Although I agree with many of Letellier’s remarks, on this point, to which I shall return, I think he does Berlioz an injustice.

On a number of levels Meyerbeer was a significant figure in Berlioz’s “present.” Their relationship is treated in most secondary literature on Berlioz, and the two most recent biographies of Berlioz, by Peter Bloom and David Cairns, both have interesting things to say on the topic. What I shall do here is look at critical writings on Meyerbeer during the July Monarchy and compare Berlioz’s writings with those of some of his fellow critics while focusing on the issue of “Meyerbeer as Jew.” Although there is little hard evidence of anti-Jewishness openly directed against Meyerbeer, the criticism of his work finds a curious and striking echo in the later anti- Semitic stereotypes of the Jewish character of art. I shall conclude with a reexamination of Berlioz’s relationship to Meyerbeer.

Meyerbeer’s “Jewishness” has not been widely seen as a crucial issue in discussions of the reception of his music in Paris during the 1830s, although later in the century, when anti-Semitic sentiments are openly and strongly voiced, it does becomes an important concern. Diana Hallman’s recent sociocultural analysis of Halévy’s opera La Juive has shown how the opera and its reception were enmeshed with contemporary views of the place of Jews in French society, suggesting that anti-Semitism did indeed play a role.