La Esmeralda - Radio France

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advantage of his ministry to achieve his reprehensible intentions, was not a character who could be admitted on stage. The unseemly behaviour of this role is all the more serious in that the minister’s form of worship, presented in such odious colours, is this same Catholic form of worship that has been perpetuated down to us; that this church, which gives the play its title and which, in the fourth act, becomes in a way the setting, is our metropolis; that the dignity of the archdeacon, in which the main character is draped, still subsists in the clergy of this church; that the costumes and religious insignias of the priest and the procession will probably be the same as those of the present day. It is to be feared that this spectacle might awaken the painful memory of contemporary facts and tend to cast discredit on religion and its ministers.’ 12 Consequently, it was made known that it was forbidden to give the opera the title of the novel, to show Claude Frollo as a priest or to designate him as such. If the author did not want to deprive the musician of the fruit of her work, he could but yield and consent to carrying out revisions—but the unexpurgated libretto (with 18 occurrences of the word ‘priest’ in the most daring contexts) was sold in the hall. The Minister of the Interior was apprised of the fact that it ‘contains almost all the passages whose deletion had been required by the censors’ and that some ‘were even recited by the actors’. The interpreter of Frollo, Levasseur, put forward as an excuse that the changes came too late. But how might one be mistaken about the status of a character ‘called archdeacon and who appears, at the conclusion, surrounded by all his clergy’ 13 ? This major motif of scandal adds to, of course, what could be deemed blasphemous or sacrilege in the eyes of the God-fearing: the chorus of beggars and thieves who openly mock ‘pope and bull’; the procession of the Pope of Fools; and what shocked the adversaries of Romanticism: the opening scene in the Cour des Miracles 14 , that of Quasimodo on the pillory, the representation and redemption of the grotesque, which they identified with a ‘cult of ugliness’ (Le Siècle). The portion of the press not connected to the Bertins went wild, especially the legitimist and Catholic papers like the Gazette de France, according to which Hugo’s libretto constituted ‘the most serious blow struck at religion, morals, principles of order, beliefs [and] ideas of justice of an entire nation’. Even amongst the less hostile, there was condescension for the musician: Louise Bertin, who needed crutches to get around, was praised for seeking ‘consolation for her physical infirmities from the noblest occupations of the mind’ (Le Siècle); being a woman, she was accused of wanting to compensate for the gentleness of her sex with over-elaborate instrumentation: ‘Mademoiselle Bertin must have feared appearing weak for she set in motion all the brass in the orchestra’ (Le Constitutionnel). Even though she had been the pupil of Reicha and, at the age of 31, already had two comic operas (Guy Mannering, after Walter Scott, 1825, and Le Loup-garou, libretto by Scribe, 1827) to her credit, along with an opera premiered at the Théâtre-Italien (Fausto, after Goethe, 1831), ‘the overly frequent use of dissonance’ (Castil-Blaze) was chalked up to inexperience. Denise Boneau, in her 1989 thesis on Louise Bertin at the University of Chicago, Françoise Tillard, with her commentaries on the score of La Esmeralda 15 , and the three hearings of the version for voice and piano that have followed since 2002, have reinforced the combat that the author of these lines has long waged so that one might judge on evidence an opera that was the victim of rejection motivated by considerations having nothing to do with its worth. The concert version presented in Montpellier thanks to René Koering allows us, for the first time in more than 170 years, to hear the orchestra and choruses conceived by the composer. May it lead, at long last, to a staged version that would pay full justice to the joint work of Victor Hugo and Louise Bertin. Arnaud Laster 16
1 Berlioz, Correspondance générale, II (Flammarion, 1975), p. 306. 2 Ibid, p. 333. 3 Ibid, p. 319. 4 Translator’s note: Taking inspiration from Shakespeare and the German Romantics, the 28-year-old playwright’s Hernani, premiered on 20 February 1830, broke with the strict rules of French classical theatre and provoked a ‘battle’ between the supporters of Classicism and Romanticism. 5 See Hugo, Œuvres complètes, « Théâtre I » (Robert Laffont, 1985), p. 1319. 6 On ‘Hugo librettiste de Louise Bertin’, see Danièle Gasiglia-Laster’s contribution to Victor Hugo l’homme océan (Bibliothèque nationale de France / Seuil, 2002), pp. 67-69. 7 See Hugo, Correspondance familiale, II (Robert Laffont, 1991), p.139. 8 Ibid., p. 143. 9 Le Rénovateur, 28 September 1834. 10 Hugo, Correspondance familiale, II, p. 155. 11 Victor Hugo raconté par Adèle Hugo (Plon, 1985), p. 570. Translator’s note: The Théâtre de l’Ambigu was a Mecca of melodrama between 1830 and 1900. 12 Quoted by me in Le Rayonnement international de Victor Hugo (Peter Lang, 1989), pp. 8-9. 13 See notice on the libretto in Hugo, Œuvres complètes, « Théâtre I, p. 1461. 14 Translators note: an ill-famed area of Paris known for its disreputable inhabitants 15 In the ‘Hugo à l’Opéra’ issue of L’Avant-Scène Opéra that I coordinated in 2002 and in the issue of L’Echo Hugo (Bulletin de la Société des Amis de Victor Hugo) of the same year. NB: The orchestral score of the overture to La Esmeralda being lost, René Koering asked composer Richard Dubugnon to orchestrate it, following the indications noted down by Franz Liszt on the piano-voice score. 17
Page 2 and 3: 2 Maya Boog et Manuel Nuñez Cameli
Page 4 and 5: CD1 Page Seite 26 1 N° 1 Ouverture
Page 6 and 7: Louise Bertin, la compositrice de L
Page 8 and 9: La Esmeralda Musique de Louise Bert
Page 10 and 11: 10 d’autant plus grave que le cul
Page 12 and 13: Louise Bertin, composer of La Esmer
Page 14 and 15: La Esmeralda Music by Louise Bertin
Page 18 and 19: Louise Bertin, die Komponistin der
Page 20 and 21: La Esmeralda Musik von Louise Berti
Page 22 and 23: 22 Vorangehende beschränken. Denno
Page 24 and 25: 24 Lawrence Foster - © Luc Jennepi
Page 26 and 27: CD1 1 N°1 Ouverture et Introductio
Page 28 and 29: 3 Chœur de truands 3 Chorus of beg
Page 30 and 31: Danse, jeune fille, Tu nous rends p
Page 32 and 33: Quasimodo Ah ! quel effroi ! Frollo
Page 34 and 35: Où je change la fête En un sangla
Page 36 and 37: 5 Quel motif vous avait jeté dans
Page 38 and 39: Clopin Puis-je vous servir ? Frollo
Page 40 and 41: Mon cœur en démence N’a plus d
Page 42 and 43: Chœur du guet Dans l’obscurité
Page 44 and 45: Serrez ferme ! Qu’il soit seigneu
Page 46 and 47: À mine hautaine, À corset d’aci
Page 48 and 49: Esmeralda Seigneur Phœbus, que je
Page 50 and 51: Un baiser ! Ah ! Ta voix est douce
Page 52 and 53: Phœbus Crois en mon cœur, Crois e
Page 54 and 55: ACTE II 10 N° 4 10 Chœur Il enlev
Page 56 and 57: Chœur Qu’on le pende le maudit !
Page 58 and 59: Fleur-de-Lys Ah ! Je le vois, Phœb
Page 60 and 61: Mon cœur est rempli de souci. Cell
Page 62 and 63: Phœbus Oubliez soucis et peines So
Page 64 and 65: Chœur Venez tous à la fête ! Pag
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à Monsieur de Gif Mais crois-tu qu
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Un de ces rêves enchantés Qui flo
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Fleur-de-Lys, Madame Gondelaurier,
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Esmeralda À votre pitié j’ai re
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CD2 74 ACTE III 1 N° 7 Chanson et
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Le Vicomte de Gif Dans une heure ?
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3 N° 9 Scène et duo 3 Au moment o
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Frollo Si vous passez cette porte
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L’imbécile, Dans la ville, Ne vo
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84 4 N° 10 Scène et trio 4 Clopin
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Esmeralda Je t’aime ! Frollo, à
Page 88 and 89:
De beauté ! Douce fille Dont l’
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Phœbus Fée ou femme, Sois ma dame
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92 Frollo O nuit d’effroi, Qui sa
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ACTE IV 5 N° 11 Entracte, récitat
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96 Esmeralda À quoi ? Frollo Prêt
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98 Esmeralda Oui, c’est lui. C’
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Esmeralda Par pitié laissez-moi vi
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Esmeralda Non, meurtrier ! Jamais !
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Toute rose Qui fleurit ; Toute chos
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Jour et nuit ! Toute fête Se compl
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Clopin Bien, bien. Frollo Tiens-toi
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110 Clopin Ne craignez rien de fune
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12 Esmeralda C’est mon Phœbus qu
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Esmeralda Je t’abhorre ! Va-t’e
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Ah pleurons, Sous sa main étendue,
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Esmeralda Phœbus ! Mon Phœbus ado
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ORCHESTRE NATIONAL DE MONTPELLIER L
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Direction artistique : René Koerin
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M.-A. PEREZ-RAMIREZ : Atacama, conc
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TABLE / CONTENT / INHALT Page/Seite
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La Esmeralda - Radio France

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