Could the Huguenots rise again? I still don’t know. There is much more to explore in this opera, in French grand opera, and in the kinds of singing and acting that might make that possible. I’m hopeful, but not sanguine.

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A “Les huguenots” minibibliography:

Barbier, Patrick: Opera in Paris, 1800-1850, Robert Luoma, trans. Amadeus Press, 1995

Becker, Heinz and Gudrun: Giacomo Meyerbeer, A Life in Letters, Mark Violette, trans. Amadeus Press, 1989

Hallman, Diana R.: Opera, Liberalism, and Antisemitism in Nineteenth-Century France/The Politics of Halévy’s La Juive. Cambridge Univ. Press, 2002

Smith, Marian: Ballet and Opera in the Age of Giselle. Princeton Univ. Press, 2000

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A little follow-up to the last post: My colleague Matthew Gurewitsch has called my attention to another trio of Maeterlinck plays (actually, two of the same ones, The Death of Tintagiles and Interior, plus Alladine and Palomide) being rolled into one opera. This one’s called Le Silence des Ombres. It is by Benjamin Attahir, and it’s being done in Brussels under the auspices of La Monnaie/de Munt, in a co-production with three other venues. Meanwhile, here in New York we have had a mounting of Interior over at the 59 E. 59 theatre complex, and the premiere by the Dell’Arte Opera of an opera by Whitney George (comp.) and Bea Goodwin (lib.) based on Maeterlinck’s first play, La princesse Maleine. After decades of becalmed sea, a Maeterlinck tsunami! Are we fleeing the real for the mystical?

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NEXT TIME: For the last of these summertime monthly posts, I’m mulling things over. Some older C.L.O. material may resurface. That’ll be on September 30. Then it’s on to the 2019-2020 season!

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