DESCRIPTION:
LES HUGUENOTS
Opéra en 5 actes
Composer: Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791–1864)
Libretto: Eugène Scribe & Émile Deschamps
First performance : Paris Opera, 29 February 1836

The 2011 Brussels recording uses the Ricordi critical edition, with up to 15 minutes of new music; for instance, the Act II Marguerite / Raoul duet and Act III finales are extended, and Marcel's choral after the couvre-feu is new.

SETTING: Touraine and Paris, August 1572

PLOT:
Act I: Raoul de Nangis, a young Huguenot, has fallen in love with an unknown beauty whom he rescued. At the Comte de Nevers’ château, he sees the woman visit Nevers in secret. She is really Valentine, sent by Marguerite de Valois (1553–1615), sister of Charles IX and daughter of Catherine de Médicis, to break off her engagement to Nevers.
Act II: To reconcile the warring religious factions, Marguerite wants Raoul to marry Valentine, the daughter of his enemy, the Comte de Saint-Bris, just as she will marry the Protestant monarch Henri de Navarre. However, Raoul refuses to marry Valentine, whom he believes is Nevers’s mistress.
Act III: Back in Paris, Nevers marries Valentine. (Saint-Bris has tried to murder Admiral Coligny, the leader of the Huguenot party.) To avenge the insult to his house, Saint-Bris plans to murder Raoul in a duel, but Marcel, warned by Valentine, saves him. Raoul learns the real reason for Valentine’s visit to Nevers, and that he wronged her.
Act IV: He visits Nevers’ Parisian town-house in secret, where he overhears the Catholics plot to murder the Huguenots – a plot conceived by Catherine de Médicis herself. After they have left, Valentine tries to restrain Raoul; she tells him that she loves him. They sing a passionate love duet, but the noise of the tocsin outside brings him to his senses, and he leaves to fight with his co-religionists. The Massacre of St Bartholomew’s day has begun.
Act V: In the streets of Paris, Valentine tells Raoul that if he converts to Catholicism, his life will be saved; Raoul refuses. Valentine renounces her faith, and accepts Raoul’s; Marcel marries them. The Catholics shoot the three; Saint-Bris learns that he has murdered his own daughter. The murderers sing that God demands blood, as the powerless Marguerite passes over the stage. Beginning on 23–24 August 1572, between 5,000 and 30,000 were killed across France over the next few weeks.

“Les Huguenots” was the most popular opera of the 19th century. Verdi called Acts II and IV ‘true theatre … stupendo’, while Berlioz thought the ‘superb’ opera contained ‘enough musical riches for twenty operas’. Even the young Wagner was impressed: ‘Meyerbeer wrote world history, the history of heart and feeling; he burst the bounds of national prejudice in writing deeds of music.’

Marguerite de Valois, reine de Navarre (soprano): Marlis Petersen
Valentine, fille du comte de Saint-Bris (soprano): Mireille Delunsch
Urbain, page de la Reine (soprano): Yulia Lezhneva
Raoul de Nangis, gentilhomme protestant (tenor): Eric Cutler
Marcel, soldat huguenot, serviteur de Raoul (basse profonde): Jérôme Varnier
Gentilhommes catholiques:
Le Comte de Nevers (basse chantante): Jean-François Lapointe
Le Comte de Saint-Bris (id.): Philippe Rouillon
De Retz (id.): Arnaud Rouillon
De Méru (id.): Frédéric Caton
Maurevert (id.): Ronan Collett
De Tavannes (tenor): Avi Klemberg
De Cossé (id.): Xavier Rouillon
De Thoré (id.) : Marc Labonnette
Bois-Rosé, soldat huguenot (id.): Olivier Dumait
Dame d’honneur (soprano): Camille Merckx
Deux bohémiennes: Camille Merckx & Tineke Van Ingelgem
Un valet: Marc Coulon
Un archer du guet: Jacques Does
Etudiant catholique: Alain-Pierre Wingelinckx
Moine: Olivier Dumait, Ronan Collett, Charles Dekeyser
Jeunes filles catholiques: Marta Beretta, Françoise Renson, Adrienne Visser, Birgitte Bønding

Conductor: Marc Minkowski
Orchestre symphonique et choeurs de la Monnaie
Brussels, 2011