Composer
Biography
Born Jakob Liebmann Beer near Berlin in 1791, he trained as a pianist, spent formative years in Italy studying Italian opera, and emerged from it in Paris, where Robert le diable in 1831, Les Huguenots in 1836 and Le prophète in 1849 helped establish French grand opera. L'Africaine reached the stage in 1865, a year after his death. Wagner drew on his music drama but later attacked him in anti-Jewish polemics. Il crociato in Egitto of 1824 was the work that first made his name across Europe, and the great Paris scores were written to libretti by Eugène Scribe. He was Prussian Court Kapellmeister from 1832 and Prussian General Music Director from 1842, and wrote Ein Feldlager in Schlesien for the reopening of the Royal Opera House in Berlin in 1844; his non-operatic works include about sixty solo songs, sacred choral music and ceremonial orchestral pieces. Under the Nazi regime his operas were suppressed in Germany.