Meyerbeer’s opera about the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre is Les Huguenots.
The French grand opera has a libretto by Eugène Scribe and Émile Deschamps. Its plot combines a fictional love story involving the Protestant Raoul de Nangis and the Catholic Valentine with the religious and political tensions of sixteenth-century France.
The massacre began in Paris on 24 August 1572, the feast day of Saint Bartholomew, and spread to other parts of France. Meyerbeer’s opera dramatizes the violence through large choral and crowd scenes, while also focusing on the personal consequences for its central characters.
Les Huguenots premiered at the Paris Opéra on 29 February 1836. It became one of the most important examples of French grand opera, a genre known for large forces, historical subjects, spectacular staging and prominent ballet or crowd sequences.