Les Martyrs

Set to a libretto by Scribe, Les Martyrs is a tragic opera in four acts which was premiered at the Paris Opéra on 10 April 1840. The work is a French adaptation of Poliuto, an opera written by Donizetti in 1838 for the opera house in Naples to a text by Salvatore Cammarano and the famous tenor Adolphe Nourrit, based on Corneille’s Polyeucte. The city’s authorities did not like the Christian subject matter of Les Martyrs and banned it. This decision had serious repercussions for Nourrit’s mental health—the tenor had left Paris after Gilbert Duprez’s triumphant success at the Paris Opéra and had suggested to Donizetti the subject of the opera in which he wanted to make his Naples debut. When Donizetti arrived in Paris in 1840, he had the opera translated by Scribe and then revised it so that it met the conventions of grand opera. He composed a new overture, a danced divertissement and a brilliant finale, rewriting Polyeucte’s arias to suit Duprez’s voice. Scribe and Donizetti also distanced themselves from the libretto by Cammarano, who had sought to play down the religious conflict by exaggerating the hero’s jealousy. This revision was probably inspired just as much by Chateaubriand’s Les Martyrs (1809) and Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots as Corneille’s play. The opera was a huge success with the public, but was received less warmly by the press who were unanimous only in their praise of Act III, whose end forms a dramatic climax: after an impressive religious scene featuring some powerful effects of orchestration and magniloquent vocal writing, Polyeucte reveals his Christian identity and topples the idols. The work was very successful when it was finally given its first performance in Italy in 1848 in its three-act transalpine version. Reviewers have seen Les Martyrs as proof of Donizetti’s interest in French grand opera as early as 1838 and of his desire to make a career in France. La Favorite was to follow several months later.