HALÉVY : LA JUIVE

 Radio New Zealand Concert network  
Sunday 20th of June 2010 at 3.03 - 6 pm

The New York Metropera staged this in 2003,
so we can exploit their archives for information
about this rare piece. Also Wikipedia.

INTRODUCTION 1
INTRODUCTION 2
BACKGROUND
UNDERGROUND
COMPOSER
CHARACTERS
SYNOPSIS
STORYLINE
ANALYSIS
LIBRETTO
The text is in French (by the well-known librettist Scribe).  The lines rhyme, I notice.

HALÉVY: La Juive, an opera in five acts
Rachel........................... Joana Gedmintaité
Eléazar.......................... Viktor Aleshkov
Prince Léopold.............. Edmundas Seilius
Princess Eudoxie........... Regina Silinskaité
Cardinal of Brogni......... Vladimiras Prudnikovas
Ruggiero....................... Arunas Malikénas
Albert........................... Deivydas Staponkus
Lithuanian National Opera Chorus & Orch/Jonas Aleksa

Radio New Zealand Concert network
Sunday 29th of July 2007 at 3 pm


HALÉVY: La Juive, an opera in five acts
Eléazar.......................... Dennis O'Neill
Rachel........................... Marina Poplavskaya
Cardinal Brogni............. Alastair Miles
Léopold........................ Darío Schmunck
Princess Eudoxie........... Nicole Cabell
Ruggiero....................... Darren Jeffery
Albert........................... Matthew Rose
Chorus & Orch of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden/Daniel Oren (recorded in the Barbican Centre, London by the BBC)

This is obviously a concert performance, not staged in the opera house. Therefore, we will not have any costumes (not even a black skull cap for Eléazar or a red skull cap for Cardinal Brogni), though we would not see them if they did. There will be no execution cauldron on stage in the last act, to boil them in oil (shouldn't that be "deep-fry them"?).

The title tells us that this is a Jewish opera: La Juive means "the Jewess" (and not every woman who bears the Hebrew name Judith knows that it too means "Jewess"). There is a Passover ceremony (a seder) in Act 2.

The composer was Jewish: Jacques Fromontal Halévy (1799-1862); his Hebrew name means "The Levite". He was the teacher and father-in-law of Bizet.

This is a "Grand Opera", with the obligatory five acts (and it should have a ballet; a ritual circumambulation of the cauldron?) It was admired by Wagner (who had a reputation for despising Jewish things), and adored by Mahler (who was a Jewish opera conductor, as well as a symphonist).

It is a tale of passionate hatred between Jews and Christians, further complicated by violent conflict between Roman Catholics and Hussite Protestants. It is set in 1414 in Constance, which is in Germany, not Switzerland, though it is at Lake Constance (and there is a riotous urge to hurl offenders into it at one point in the drama). The ecclesiastical Council of Constance was then in session, trying to restore unity among Christians.

A Christian prince (Leopold alias Samuel) loves a Jewess (Rachel, daughter of Eléazar), but he is already betrothed to a Christian princess (Eudoxia); there are strict 'apartness' laws in force, and martyrdom will be the outcome. The big secret, revealed at the very end, is that Rachel is Cardinal Brogni's long-lost daughter, who was rescued from a fire that destroyed his home (he entered the Church as a priest after that, in case you are wondering) and was brought up by Eléazar, and is now back in the fire. Shades of Verdi's Il Trovatore.

In 1986 and 1989, a fine audio recording of La Juive was made with José Carreras as Eléazar; he had to undergo treatment for leukaemia at that time, and his contribution was inserted later (even into the ensembles, and there are many, with everybody singing different words). You could say that this opera killed Caruso: Eléazar was his last role; he died of pleurisy in Naples in 1921 (and so he was not croaking 'The Last Rose of Summer' in Flotow's Martha on stage, as alleged in the movie The Great Caruso, though Mario Lanza was).