Research Catalog

Title

Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots : an evangel of religion and love / by Robert Ignatius Letellier.

Author

Letellier, Robert Ignatius

Publication

Newcastle upon Tyne : Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

xxiv, 284 pages : illustrations, music; 22 cm

Summary

On 29 February 1836, Les Huguenots, a grand opera by Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791-1864), with words by Eugéne Scribe (1791-1861) and emile Deschamps (1791-1871), was performed for the first time, at the Paris Opèra. It was to be one of the most successful productions ever staged at the Opèra, with 1,126 performances in Paris over the next hundred years, and, in the process, breaking all box office records. It became Meyerbeer's most popular work, with thousands of stagings throughout the world. Les Huguenots is a huge exploration of faith, tolerance, hatred, extermination, love, loyalty, self-sacrifice and hope in despair. It is the first panel in a central diptych on the Reformation, at the heart of the wider tetralogy of Meyerbeer's grand operas, where issues of power, religion and love are examined in a variety of modes. For five years after the sensational premiere of Robert le Diable, Meyerbeer worked on this gigantic drama, partly adapted by Scribe from Prosper Mèrimèe's Chronique de Charles IX. Meyerbeer matches the text in drama, splendour and ceremony: it combines theatricalism with profound depths of feeling. Its gorgeous colouring, intense passion, consistency of dramatic treatment, and careful delineation of character secured for this work vast fame and influence. It was an epoch-making opera, an enduring monument to Meyerbeer's fame. The music for this sombre tapestry of the Saint Bartholomew Massacre springs from the core of the vivid action, and creates a panoramic alternation of moods, that capture the tragedy of religious intolerance and personal anguish in one of the most fraught events in history, when some 30,000 French Protestants were murdered during 24 August 1574.

Subject

• Meyerbeer, Giacomo, 1791-1864
• Meyerbeer, Giacomo, 1791-1864
• Huguenots (Meyerbeer, Giacomo)

Genre/Form

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 227-263) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

The origins -- The sources - The religious symbolism -- The dramaturgy -- The leading themes -- Instrumental writing -- Formal innovation -- The treatment of the chorus -- The blessing of the daggers -- The love duet -- The dramatic form of Act 5 -- The orchestral music -- Reception history -- Performing traditions -- Performance in the twentieth century -- The iconography -- Historical appendices.

ISBN

• 1443856665
• 9781443856669

OCLC

880913267

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library