Wednesday 23, July - 20h - Opéra Berlioz / Le Corum

La Esmeralda
Louise Bertin

Esmeralda: an opera and a woman composer to discover

Louise Bertin’s Esmeralda should arouse the liveliest curiosity: Victor Hugo himself adapted the libretto from his novel Notre-Dame de Paris; Berlioz conducted the rehearsals; the greatest voices of the period, Adolphe Nourrit and Cornélie Falcon, took the lead roles; and Liszt transcribed the entire work for voice and piano.

But an opera composed by a woman, about a priest mad with desire for a Gypsy girl, whom he declares a witch and wants to send to the gallows because she refuses herself to him… all that ran too contrary to the traditions and taboos of the Académie Royale de Musique. So it was assumed that the opera could only have been performed thanks to the influence of the newspaper run by the composer’s father and that the score’s successes were due to the intervention of the author of the Symphonie fantastique. Misogyny, Hugophobia and conformism joined forces to bring down the work.

According to the thesis of a young American musicologist stressing the originality of its writing, and the three revivals in voice-piano version given since 2002 with growing success, the time has come to hear it in its original version with chorus and orchestra, in order to be able to assess the true worth of its music.

Arnaud Laster