La Esmeralda (opera)

La Esmeralda is a grand opera in four acts composed by Louise Bertin. The libretto
was written by Victor Hugo, who had adapted it from his 1831 novel Notre-Dame de
Paris (The Hunchback of Notre Dame). The opera premiered at the Théâtre de
l'Académie Royale de Musique in Paris on 14 November 1836 with Cornélie Falcon in
the title role. Despite the lavish production, the premiere was a failure, and La
Esmeralda proved to be the last opera composed by Bertin, although she lived for
another 40 years.

Partially paralyzed from birth, and basically chair-bound, Louise Bertin had been
somewhat of a child prodigy. She painted, wrote poetry, and when she was only 19
composed her first opera, Guy Mannering for which she also wrote the libretto based
on Sir Walter Scott's novel, Guy Mannering or The Astrologer. Two of her later
operas were produced at the Opéra-Comique, Le loup-garou (The Werewolf) in 1827 and
Fausto in 1831 (again with a libretto by Bertin, this time adapted from Goethe's
play Faust).

Although many of Victor Hugo's plays and novels were later adapted as operas (e.g.
Hernani, Ruy Blas, Le roi s'amuse, Angelo, Tyrant of Padua, Marie Tudor, and
Lucrèce Borgia), La Esmeralda was the first and only libretto which he wrote
himself in direct collaboration with the composer.[1] Shortly after he completed
Notre-Dame de Paris in 1830, Hugo began sketching out an operatic adaptation.[2]
The success of the novel had brought him many offers from composers anxious to turn
it into an opera, including Meyerbeer and Berlioz.[3] He had declined those
proposals, but according to Hugo's wife, he changed his mind out of friendship for
the Bertin family.[4] In September 1832, while Hugo was staying with the Bertins,
Louise, supported by her father Louis-François Bertin, asked him for permission to
create an opera from the work. He immediately commenced work on a libretto,
completing it on his return to Paris (despite the frenzy of rehearsals for his play
Le Roi s'amuse), and sending Louise the first draft manuscript on 30 October 1832.
[3]

The process of preparing the final libretto was slow, and rehearsals for the opera
did not begin until over three years after Hugo wrote the first lines. Bertin's
requests for lines of various lengths to fit the music partly contributed to this
as well as the task of condensing a long novel into a four-hour opera. Many of the
characters were eliminated including Jehan Frollo, the dissolute younger brother of
the chief antagonist Claude Frollo, although some aspects of his character were
incorporated into Claude's. The main protagonist of the novel, Quasimodo, has a
much reduced role in the opera, which concentrates more on the love story between
Esmeralda and Phoebus. At Bertin's request, the ending of the novel was also
changed with Esmeralda escaping execution. In 1834, Notre-Dame de Paris had been
placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, the list of works condemned by the
Catholic Church. The opera libretto was submitted to the censors in January 1836
who required the title to be changed to La Esmeralda and all references to Claude
Frollo as a priest to be removed. (The printed libretto which was sold prior to the
premiere did have the change of title but retained the use of "priest" regardless,
and some of the singers at the premiere sang the original lines, claiming they had
forgotten which words were censored.)[4]

No expense was spared for the production. The four principal roles were assigned to
the reigning stars of the Paris Opera: Cornélie Falcon, Adolphe Nourrit, Nicolas
Levasseur and Jean-Étienne Massol. The well-known interior and theatrical designers
Humanité-René Philastre and Charles-Antoine Cambon designed the sets and costumes.
Bertin's limited mobility made it difficult for her to participate in the
rehearsals, and her father commissioned Berlioz to conduct the rehearsals and
direct the singers. Berlioz found the experience dispiriting. The singers and
orchestra were unenthusiastic, and showed it during the rehearsals. There were also
backstage rumblings that the opera was only being produced because of the Bertin
family's influence and a persistent rumor that Berlioz had written the best arias
in the piece, a back-handed compliment which he firmly denied. He wrote to Franz
Liszt, "What an inferno that whole world is, an ice-cold inferno!"[5] Hugo was
travelling in Brittany and absent for almost all the rehearsals. According to Adèle
Hugo, on his return he was not pleased with the set and costume designs, finding,
in his opinion, "nothing rich nor picturesque." In particular, he found the use of
obviously new cloth to clothe the beggars and vagabonds inappropriate and blurred
the distinction between the social classes.[6]