Henry VIII

“Saint-Saëns is entitled to have a flop at the Opera.” With these flippant words transcribed by Saint-Saëns himself, Charles Gounod tried to convince Vaucorbeil, the director of the Académie Nationale de Musique, to give his friend the opportunity to mount an opera in his prestigious institution: Henry VIII was performed there on 5 March 1883, “with a luxury, an ensemble and a brilliance that gave him [Vaucorbeil] inalienable rights to my gratitude,” Saint-Saëns confided many years later. The opera was a great success at the time of its premiere, but then, especially in Paris, it gradually fell out of favour. During Saint-Saëns’s lifetime, however, Henry VIII remained his most frequently performed work, with Phryné, after Samson et Dalila. The plot relates the passion of Henry VIII (baritone) for Anne Boleyn (mezzo-soprano), a passion that leads the king to repudiate his wife, Catherine of Aragon (soprano), break away from the Holy See and proclaim himself head of the Church of England. Musically speaking, Henry VIII is fully in keeping with the tradition of the French grand opéra. The historicizing character of the narrative is emphasized by the use, right from the Prelude, of passages inspired by the musical repertoire of the Renaissance (for example, a piece by William Byrd in Act IV, to accompany the entertainment organized in Anne Boleyn’s apartments). The work is characterized by the use of leitmotivs generally linked to characters, or, even more subtly, to the king’s various moods.