Meyerbeer's 'Les Huguenots' gets my vote as his masterpiece, and from my understanding was also his most successful opera in his lifetime, earning high praise from Berlioz and even Wagner (who from belief was usually particularly critical of Meyerbeer) was impressed.
It has the most compelling story of his operas and it contains some of Meyerbeer's most striking music ("O Beau Pays" is the most famously performed, but Raoul and Marcel's arias, the duet between Raoul and Valentine and the septet are equally wonderful). It was intriguing hearing 'Les Huguenots' sung in German (makes sense as oddly enough Meyerbeer was German-born) in this 1991 Deutsch Oper production, but unfortunately the production was not a good representation of the opera. The Australian Opera production with Joan Sutherland to me is far better, although it's late career Sutherland it's traditional, tasteful, coherent and beautifully performed, everything that on the most part this production isn't.
There are a few bright spots. The best singer in the cast is Lucy Peacock as Valentine, whose voice is beautiful and flexible. She is also a very touching actress, the one person to properly succeed in creating a real character, and almost a breath of fresh air from what has been seen before after trying to recover from the bad aftertaste left by what has been done to Act 3. The extended duet between Valentine and Raoul is brilliantly sung by both Peacock and Richard Leech and they act up a storm, with poignancy and dramatic intensity. It is such a shame and performing of this quality happens so late into the production. Some of the orchestral playing is rousing and lyrical if in need of more style and nuance, the colouratura of Camille Capasso impresses hugely and the singing and acting of the final trio is incredibly moving, again another moment that appears too late.
The production is well-served on DVD, with sympathetic video directing, excellent picture quality and clear sound (if with too much of a boom in places).
Unfortunately, the production has so many shortcomings elsewhere. The performance has been heavily cut to suit the modern staging, and while this reviewer tries not to be an opera purist when it means that Act 3 is so badly mangled that it makes the storytelling incomprehensible it is difficult to ignore. The modern staging doesn't work, it is a serious opera but treated in a less-than-serious, almost absurd, way by John Dew. Visually it's ugly, with the first act looking like some cheap-looking vaudeville act complete with costumes that would look more at home at a cabaret or a midnight showing of Rocky Horror and sets that look both too drab and too cluttered. The staging contradicts the specific libretto often (still evident even with the cuts), is distastefully vulgar in Act 1, often irrelevant and Act 3 is basically incoherent. Plus if anybody is looking to see how the bathing scene caused a scandal in Meyerbeer's time, don't look to this production to find out. Only in the last two acts does the drama involve and move and it feels too little too late but effective enough to save the production.
Very little better news to say about it musically either. The chorus sound underpowered, are drowned out by the orchestra a lot and sound ragged as if constantly surprised by the tempos thrown at them. When they are heard, they sound almost too cavalier and it translates into their acting, sadly the times it happens are in the wrong places. They are disadvantaged by the rather unsympathetic conducting of Stefan Soltesz, who rushes through the music very mechanically making parts, like a lot of the choral moments and especially the "blessing of the swords", abrupt-sounding.
Peacock, and to a lesser extent Capasso, aside, the performances underwhelm. Fair play for taking on roles very difficult to cast, but most of them are singing roles that are not really that well suited to them. Capasso sounds fantastic and her colouratura dazzles but she is made up ridiculously and from the looks of her self-conscious acting it seems like she's aware of that. Angela Denning has the right amount of regal dignity for Marguerite, but sounds too heavy for the role and lacks the flexibility for it. "O Beau Pays" clearly hears her sounding overparted, even with it simplified. Richard Leech has the charisma and the notes for the fiendishly challenging role of Raoul and he has a very impressive strong voice with no hints of strain, but the lack of musicianship and nuance undermines him somewhat. For instance in his romance, he certainly is suave but elegant? Not so much really, too stentorian and if he did sing mezza voce anywhere in the aria it wasn't detected.
Martin Blasius, although good in the last act, sounds rough and unsteady elsewhere in the production as Marcel, and is an indifferent and apologetic-looking actor. You couldn't have found a less authoritative and more apologetic performance of Marcel's war song around really. Hartmut Welker is also in less than good vocal shape and also barely registers as an actor.
All in all, this production should only really be seen if one is interested to see if the opera works in German (considering how the cuts butchers the opera and story so badly here it is hard to say whether it does or not) or whether 'Les Huguenots' works in the modern staging (from how it's executed here, one should be forgiven for thinking it doesn't and being intrepid in viewing any future modern stagings of it). Not a complete disaster, but falls well short. 3/10 Bethany Cox
It has the most compelling story of his operas and it contains some of Meyerbeer's most striking music ("O Beau Pays" is the most famously performed, but Raoul and Marcel's arias, the duet between Raoul and Valentine and the septet are equally wonderful). It was intriguing hearing 'Les Huguenots' sung in German (makes sense as oddly enough Meyerbeer was German-born) in this 1991 Deutsch Oper production, but unfortunately the production was not a good representation of the opera. The Australian Opera production with Joan Sutherland to me is far better, although it's late career Sutherland it's traditional, tasteful, coherent and beautifully performed, everything that on the most part this production isn't.
There are a few bright spots. The best singer in the cast is Lucy Peacock as Valentine, whose voice is beautiful and flexible. She is also a very touching actress, the one person to properly succeed in creating a real character, and almost a breath of fresh air from what has been seen before after trying to recover from the bad aftertaste left by what has been done to Act 3. The extended duet between Valentine and Raoul is brilliantly sung by both Peacock and Richard Leech and they act up a storm, with poignancy and dramatic intensity. It is such a shame and performing of this quality happens so late into the production. Some of the orchestral playing is rousing and lyrical if in need of more style and nuance, the colouratura of Camille Capasso impresses hugely and the singing and acting of the final trio is incredibly moving, again another moment that appears too late.
The production is well-served on DVD, with sympathetic video directing, excellent picture quality and clear sound (if with too much of a boom in places).
Unfortunately, the production has so many shortcomings elsewhere. The performance has been heavily cut to suit the modern staging, and while this reviewer tries not to be an opera purist when it means that Act 3 is so badly mangled that it makes the storytelling incomprehensible it is difficult to ignore. The modern staging doesn't work, it is a serious opera but treated in a less-than-serious, almost absurd, way by John Dew. Visually it's ugly, with the first act looking like some cheap-looking vaudeville act complete with costumes that would look more at home at a cabaret or a midnight showing of Rocky Horror and sets that look both too drab and too cluttered. The staging contradicts the specific libretto often (still evident even with the cuts), is distastefully vulgar in Act 1, often irrelevant and Act 3 is basically incoherent. Plus if anybody is looking to see how the bathing scene caused a scandal in Meyerbeer's time, don't look to this production to find out. Only in the last two acts does the drama involve and move and it feels too little too late but effective enough to save the production.
Very little better news to say about it musically either. The chorus sound underpowered, are drowned out by the orchestra a lot and sound ragged as if constantly surprised by the tempos thrown at them. When they are heard, they sound almost too cavalier and it translates into their acting, sadly the times it happens are in the wrong places. They are disadvantaged by the rather unsympathetic conducting of Stefan Soltesz, who rushes through the music very mechanically making parts, like a lot of the choral moments and especially the "blessing of the swords", abrupt-sounding.
Peacock, and to a lesser extent Capasso, aside, the performances underwhelm. Fair play for taking on roles very difficult to cast, but most of them are singing roles that are not really that well suited to them. Capasso sounds fantastic and her colouratura dazzles but she is made up ridiculously and from the looks of her self-conscious acting it seems like she's aware of that. Angela Denning has the right amount of regal dignity for Marguerite, but sounds too heavy for the role and lacks the flexibility for it. "O Beau Pays" clearly hears her sounding overparted, even with it simplified. Richard Leech has the charisma and the notes for the fiendishly challenging role of Raoul and he has a very impressive strong voice with no hints of strain, but the lack of musicianship and nuance undermines him somewhat. For instance in his romance, he certainly is suave but elegant? Not so much really, too stentorian and if he did sing mezza voce anywhere in the aria it wasn't detected.
Martin Blasius, although good in the last act, sounds rough and unsteady elsewhere in the production as Marcel, and is an indifferent and apologetic-looking actor. You couldn't have found a less authoritative and more apologetic performance of Marcel's war song around really. Hartmut Welker is also in less than good vocal shape and also barely registers as an actor.
All in all, this production should only really be seen if one is interested to see if the opera works in German (considering how the cuts butchers the opera and story so badly here it is hard to say whether it does or not) or whether 'Les Huguenots' works in the modern staging (from how it's executed here, one should be forgiven for thinking it doesn't and being intrepid in viewing any future modern stagings of it). Not a complete disaster, but falls well short. 3/10 Bethany Cox
