La Esmeralda - Saint-Etienne Opera house (2023) - La Esmeralda - Opéra de Saint-Etienne (2023)

Description

At the Copeau Theater.

New co-production
Saint-Étienne Opera, Bouffes du Nord Theater, Grand Avignon Opera, Vichy Culture - Vichy Opera, Tours Opera, Meudon Center for Art and Culture.

"Adaptation of Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo, on a libretto by the writer himself, La Esmeralda did not know the fate it deserves. After a well-received premiere in 1836, the work controversial for political, but also societal reasons. Louise Bertin, a woman with a motor disability, was decried by the critics of the time who denied her the ability to compose a large-scale work. The composer seems to have found a double fictional in the character of Esmeralda, harassed and despised by a group of men who cannot tolerate her freedom.

Later adaptations of Victor Hugo's novel romanticized the love of Quasimodo, Phoebus and Frollo for Esmeralda. But Hugo's libretto takes us back to the source of the story: the story of a woman, a stranger, desired by a belligerent Phoebus and a treacherous priest, victim of sexual assault and who finds himself guilty.
The director, Jeanne Desoubeaux, wanted to give back the place to the words of Hugo for this great return of La Esmeralda. "Everything will be based on the vocal and theatrical power of the singers, the intelligence in the writing of the situations and the contemporary scope of the subject", she specifies, with a strong desire to "circulate the energy of the bodies on stage and the bestiality of the relationships between men and women in this opera. »
The Lélio ensemble will revive the music of Louise Bertin on period instruments, under the direction of Benjamin d'Anfray. An assumed minimalist choice, to allow this composition to regain both its beauty and its surprising harshness. The Opéra de Saint-Étienne is delighted with this first co-production with the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, and with having built, within its workshops, the remarkable sets that transpose the action to the recently damaged Notre-Dame cathedral. "

More information is available on the official website of the opera house.