Meyerbeer's mediocre masterpiece
19 May 2016 01:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeE.M.K.81 has come up with a highly convincing theory about the opera that was being staged on the night following Christine's disastrous disappearance during "Faust": we are told that it is a piece by Meyerbeer (about whom Erik is disparaging) and we know that he plans to commit suicide by proxy through Christine at eleven o'clock, "at the height of the evening performance" according to the Persian.
Now, it so happens that we know of one specific Meyerbeer opera that was in the current repertory of the Paris Opera at the time of this story: Le Prophète, the historical melodrama which featured the white horse César who is trained for the purpose and stolen by Erik. And it turns out that the finale of Le Prophète just happens to involve the heroine setting off an explosion in a powder magazine which destroys the building and the revelling crowd inside it. The coincidence seems far too great: Erik deliberately delays his explosion until the end of that night's performance in order to mirror events upstairs in a fit of dramatic irony.
It seems very likely that Leroux intended the next night's performance to be "Le Prophète"...
Now, it so happens that we know of one specific Meyerbeer opera that was in the current repertory of the Paris Opera at the time of this story: Le Prophète, the historical melodrama which featured the white horse César who is trained for the purpose and stolen by Erik. And it turns out that the finale of Le Prophète just happens to involve the heroine setting off an explosion in a powder magazine which destroys the building and the revelling crowd inside it. The coincidence seems far too great: Erik deliberately delays his explosion until the end of that night's performance in order to mirror events upstairs in a fit of dramatic irony.
It seems very likely that Leroux intended the next night's performance to be "Le Prophète"...