Opera Simplified #7: Les Huguenots—Notes for Act V and an Appendix!
Notes:
** For some bizarre reason (possibly a combination of length and the fact that this act does not portray the Catholic Church in a good light at all), it was surprisingly common performance practice for a very long time (although not anymore) that this act would be cut entirely and the opera would end with Raoul getting shot outside Valentine’s house at the end of Act IV. If you’re scratching your head too...yeah.
*** Partly because this scene is often seen as not really necessary for the main plot and partly because it primarily consists of an extremely difficult tenor aria, this scene is frequently cut.
**** The version of the aria given in the main text is the version commonly performed; due to a combination of cuts and censorship of anti-monarchical content, the aria here is much shorter than originally written. Below is an English translation of what was to have been an additional verse of the aria and would have been inserted after this line:
RAOUL
When he [Coligny] was alive, they did not dare look upon
this noble face honored by victory without paling—
and in death, they insulted him!
Friends, here is his blood!
Do you still doubt?
And these are Frenchmen!
And these are Christians
who claim their support from Heaven and the royal throne for this!
Roving and full of fury, cursing their torture,
I ran to the Louvre, running through the danger,
to plead with King Charles! What a crime! May he be cursed!…
I saw the King himself shoot down his [Huguenot] subjects,
whom he is supposed to protect, from the top of his balcony!
Everywhere, murder and fire!
Everywhere, furious priests
proclaiming the wrath of Heaven!
And alas, no one, not even
the young girl in prayer
or the baby at its mother’s breast,
escapes their blows!
Will we helplessly watch this blood flow
when it cries out for vengeance?
It is waiting to be avenged! And they will have that vengeance from us!
***** The Louvre Palace was the royal palace of France prior to the building of the Palace of Versailles. It did give its name to the art museum now partially housed within it, but to be clear, Valentine is not telling them to take refuge at an art museum.
****** Props to Olivier Py (director of La Monnaie De Munt’s 2011 production) for apparently being the only director with enough common sense to let Nevers die onstage.
******* The ending of the previous scene is often modified so that this and the previous scene take place in the same setting.
Appendix:
so as you may have guessed, there was a shitton of research and online articles and things used in the making of this very long, very detailed project!
the following are some of the resources used in the making of this Opera Simplified:
-Wikipedia
-Google Translate
-Collins French-English online dictionary
-Wiktionary
-five (5) different libretti:
Google Books previews of Giacomo Meyerbeer: The Complete Libretti
Nico Castel’s word-for-word English translation
this webpage of Eugène Scribe’s original libretto before Deschamps (and others) made changes to it
this French/Spanish libretto
and this French/Italian libretto
-a piano/vocal score and a full orchestral score both available on IMSLP
-this delightful post from my dear @monotonous-minutia
-this post i wrote over two years ago