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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 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.
==Background==
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.〔Bennett (February 2002)〕 Shortly after he completed ''Notre-Dame de Paris'' in 1830, Hugo began sketching out an operatic adaptation.〔Hibberd (2009) p. 37〕 The success of the novel had brought him many offers from composers anxious to turn it into an opera, including Meyerbeer and Berlioz.〔Hugo (1964), II 1901〕 He had declined those proposals, but according to Hugo's wife, he changed his mind out of friendship for the Bertin family.〔Halsall (1998) p. 171〕 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.〔
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 words, claiming they had forgotten that which ones were censored.)〔
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 complement which he firmly denied. He wrote to Franz Liszt, "What an inferno that whole world is, an ice-cold inferno!"〔Cairns (2003) p. 121〕 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 in which he found "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 them and those of the higher social classes.〔
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