CHORAL COMPONENT IN THE INNOVATIVE PRODUCTION OF G. MEYERBEER’S “LES HUGUENOTS” IN MANNHEIM

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to determine the peculiarities of the choral component of G. Meyerbeer’s opera “Les Huguenots” in the production of the Mannheim National Theatre. The material in this article is based on the score (musical text) of G. Meyerbeer’s opera “Les Huguenots” and the video of the Mannheim National Theatre’s premiere performance on 22 January 2023. Relying on the works of Ukrainian and foreign musicologists (M. Cherkashyna-Gubarenko, Shan Yun, S. Döring and S. Henz-Döring) on the operatic works of G. Meyerbeer, the research allowed us to consider the history of the creation of the opera masterpiece “Les Huguenots” and the structural and compositional construction of the opera as a whole. The analysis of musicological publications has proved that the performance features of the choral component of the opera and the staging of G. Meyerbeer’s “Les Huguenots” in the XXI century have not been considered in the contemporary musicological literature, which determines the relevance of this topic. The scientific novelty of the research results lies in the fact that for the first time in music science, attention is focused on the study of the performance aspect of the choral component in the innovative production of G. Meyerbeer’s opera “Les Huguenots” by the National Theatre of Mannheim. The research has revealed that the choral component is a direct participant in the operatic conflict, which is involved in all the nodal moments of the opera. In the course of the analysis of G. Meyerbeer’s opera masterpiece, the dramatic functions of the chorus are identified, in particular, the effective, prayerful, leitmotif and commentary function. The production of G. Meyerbeer’s opera “Les Huguenots” selected for analysis took place at the National Theatre of Mannheim on 22 January 2023. The production team consisted of directors Yossi Wheeler and Sergio Morabito, choirmaster Daniel Juris, stage design by Anna Fibrock, and conductor Janis Lepins. The inter-confessional conflict between Protestants (Huguenots) and Catholics in this production is not tied to a place and time in order to focus on the cyclical nature of historical events, so G. Meyerbeer’s operatic masterpiece gained popularity during the composer’s lifetime and still remains relevant today.