The 21st-century Meyerbeer revival – much talked about, not all that tangible – is so far bearing more fruit on record than it is on stage. And perhaps this itself may be part of the Meyerbeer problem.

LSO Live’s highly impressive recording of Le prophète is supported by the Bru Zane foundation, which released 2022’s recording of Robert le Diable (Gramophone Recording of the Month, A/22, and nominated last year for an Award); both albums also feature John Osborn in a testing tenor title-role. The combination of the LSO’s dynamism and Bru Zane’s investment gives us brilliant audio quality – especially noticeable since this is a live recording from the Aix Festival in 2023 – and a smart physical product with in-depth essays and a full libretto in French and English.

Mark Elder is just the right sort of conductor to pick apart the knots of a sprawling 1849 drama about a false messiah, Jean (John of Leiden), who is stuck between a wily Anabaptist cult, his beloved Berthe and a tigress of a mother, Fidès, a role written for the great Pauline Viardot. Elder imbues the highly influential score with both fastidious bel canto delicacy and a rock-solid grip of the set pieces, which veer from a bubbly, practically Rossinian ballet (originally on stage it was done on roller skates – the mind boggles) to the Berliozian swagger of John’s ‘coronation’ in Munster (starring the sterling Lyon Opera Chorus and children’s choir Maîtrise des Bouches-du-Rhône) and the slinky decadence of the literally incendiary bacchanale. The LSO play with panache throughout.

Osborn’s Jean is hard to fault, mastering romantic ardour in a sweet voix mixte, stirring in his Act 3 prayer and then suitably acrid as he turns on his fickle followers. Elizabeth DeShong’s Fidès is splendid, delivered with ripe, fruity tone and good agility. More tender than ferocious, perhaps La Viardot would have been gutsier in the lower range, but we will never find out. Completing a fine trio, Mané Galoyan’s Berthe is soulful, bright-toned and sympathetic. A not well-drawn villain, Oberthal, is decently sung by Edwin Crossley-Mercer, so too the various conspiratorial zealots.

And to the problem. The paradox of this excellent recording is that Meyerbeer’s scores have visual effects practically inked on the staves. You can’t separate the spectacle from the music, and when you listen at home Le prophète isn’t inspired enough to sweep you through three and a quarter hours of music. At the small scale, the composer struggles with the interior lives of the characters, and with shaping either compellingly melodic or dramatic arias and duets.

Yet on stage today, Le prophète and Meyerbeer’s other epics still struggle to spark into theatrical life – not helped by how costly Meyerbeer’s required ingredients are in an age when live grand opera is struggling to pay the bills. It may be decades yet before Meyerbeer – sometime operatic king – sits again on his throne. Or, hélas, it may never happen.