jan 1, 1836 - Les Huguenots

Description:

a French opera by Giacomo Meyerbeer, one of the most popular and spectacular examples of the style of grand opera. In five acts, to a libretto by Eugène Scribe and Émile Deschamps, it premiered in Paris in 1836.

Opera Plot
The story culminates in the historical St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in 1572 in which thousands of French Huguenots (Protestants) were slaughtered by Catholics in an effort to rid France of Protestant influence. Although the massacre was a historical event, the rest of the action, which primarily concerns the love between the Catholic Valentine and the Protestant Raoul, is wholly a creation of Scribe.

A short orchestral prelude, featuring Martin Luther's chorale "Ein feste Burg", replaces the extended overture Meyerbeer originally intended for the opera.

Bourgeois Kings
A. After the overthrow of the aristocracy in France, a “Citizen King,” Louis Philippe, governed France.
1. He was to mediate power between different groups and represented conservative
liberalism.
2. Religious and civil tolerance and political stability resulted.
3. There are comparable ties to “Americanism.”
4. The opera in Paris took on some of the characteristics we associate with early
Hollywood: high-tech production values, special effects, overdone/overdecorated settings in
somewhat fantastical historical interpretation, and reinforcement of middle-class values. Jewish talent rose to the fore, as seen in works by Meyerbeer.
B. Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots became the standard by which other operas were judged.
1. Its theme is religious tolerance.
2. Meyerbeer had studied in Italy and soon became Rossini’s most serious competition.
3. An earlier opera, Robert le diable, was similar in many respects to Weber’s Der Freischütz but is larger in scope and scale.
4. The political morals in Les Huguenots are unambiguous.
5. Meyerbeer’s grand opera represented a different singing style, not bel canto.
a. Grand opera has fewer arias, but they do require vocal virtuosity.
b. Meyerbeer extends singing “from the chest” to the top of the range—what we think of today when we say “operatic singing.”
6. Meyerbeer’s most famous ensemble piece, the “Blessing of the Daggers,” demonstrates the composer’s impressive ability to maintain drama through music in an extended
scene.
a. He relies on musical cues, such as the slow dotted rhythms of the French overture to signify the dignity of the blessing.
b. The use of the chorus highlights the drama.
c. The return of the tenor in an “aria time” heightens the tension by holding the
audience in suspension throughout the singer’s solo reflection.

Vagaries of Reception
A. Meyerbeer’s operas received numerous performances in Paris, and their popularity spread over almost a dozen countries.
B. Nonetheless, today his operas are performed only occasionally.
1. Part of this is due to the sheer costs of putting on grand opera.
2. Wagner’s attacks on Meyerbeer (particularly Wagner’s anti-Semitic writings) also lessened the latter’s stature in the opera world.
3. Cosmopolitanism contributed to the reception of grand opera in the Romantic period.
4. Jews were increasingly seen as threatening to many Romantics.

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