Meyerbeer: Le prophète review – wild operatic oddity is given a breathless ride

The British conductor Mark Elder, celebrated for his exhaustive understanding of orchestral repertoire, has just ended his 24-year tenure with the Hallé Orchestra, Manchester. His reputation as an opera conductor goes back much further, to his days as music director (1979-93) of English National Opera – now seen as a golden era – as well as for his operatic work elsewhere.

As an advocate for an opera you did not know you needed to hear, Elder is unrivalled. The work in question is Meyerbeer’s Le Prophète , in a live recording with the London Symphony Orchestra, from last year’s Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, with exciting soloists and the expert Lyon Opera chorus.

Premiered in 1849, this French grand opera in five acts is a hellfire oddity, the complete score lost until this century (not the only reason for its neglect). The composer himself described it as “sombre and fanatical”, which is an understatement. Set in the religious wars of the 16th century, and including an Anabaptists’ uprising, a “skating” chorus (on a frozen lake), a drunken feast and a final conflagration, it lurches from climax to emotional climax. The tenor John Osborn as Jean de Leyde, the prophet of the title; mezzo-soprano Elizabeth DeShong as his mother; and soprano Mané Galoyan as his fiancee, Berthe, lead a first-rate cast. It’s decidedly a curiosity, but here given a breathless ride to its dramatic conclusion.