Le Pré aux clercs

Description

By completing Le Pré aux clercs, created at the Opéra-Comique in 1832, Louis-Ferdinand Hérold signs his greatest success and his final opera (he dies three weeks after the premiere). From the opening to the last finale, the simplicity of the singing, the strength of the dramatic effects, and the effectiveness of the choral writing testify to the flourishing of Romanticism and the assimilation of Rossini, then the paragon of modernity. Following the revolutionary days of July 1830, it is time to exorcise: as is customary, the Parisian lyric stage does not address the political subject head-on but relies on the fratricidal conflict that began on Saint Bartholomew's Day (August 25, 1572). It is a novel by Prosper Mérimée published in 1829 - Chronique du règne de Charles IX - that serves as the starting point for the libretto of Le Pré aux clercs. The immense success of the work, almost contemporary with Meyerbeer's Huguenots, shows that it resonates perfectly with the concerns of the time and the new ambitions of a supposedly light genre...