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Podcast: Classical Music Discoveries
Episode: 18192 Meyerbeer: Les Huguenots
Description: Les Huguenots was some five years in creation. Meyerbeer prepared carefully for this opera after the sensational success of Robert le diable, recognizing the need to continue to present lavish staging, a highly dramatic storyline, impressive orchestration, and virtuoso parts for the soloists – the essential elements of the new genre of Grand Opera. Meyerbeer and his librettist for Robert le Diable, Eugène Scribe, had agreed to collaborate on an epic work concerning the French Wars of Religion, with a drama partly based on Prosper Mérimée's 1829 novel Chronique du règne de Charles IX. Coming from a wealthy family...