La Juive

by Jacques Halévy (1799-1862)

With sincere thanks to Miriam G. Palay,
who compiled these notes.

THE COMPOSER: JACQUES HALÉVY, the composer of La Juive, was a member of the renowned HALÉVY family living in Spain during the Moorish period like many other Jews. That family like others more than likely left Spain for France or for Holland centuries before because of the Spanish Inquisition and the subsequent expulsion of Spanish Jews in 1492. (One of the outstanding Spanish Jews as many as two centuries prior to that expulsion was YEHUDA HALÉVY. a widely recognized philosopher and poet.) It is likely that same Halevy family moved on to Holland but, then, back to France, all the while becoming still more sophisticated and cosmopolitan than they were when they left Spain. This was an important background for a composer born in Paris in 1799 just 10 years after the French Revolution and living his early years in the highly charged Napoleonic regime.

Because Napoleon opened the world to Jews, new worlds were open to Halévy during his formative years - Napoleon offered French citizenship to all Jews in his empire no matter where they lived. He tore down all ghetto walls, as well. We modern Jews are generally unaware of how much we owe to Napoleon but it was truly his regime that made possible the development of the genius of Jacques Halevy.

Because of Napoleonic edicts concenring Jews, Halévy was able to live a privledged life. He was recognized as a prodigy early on and was encouraged to enter a conservatory by the time he was ten. He became a teacher at that conservatory by the time he was 17 and produced La Juive in 1835 when he was 36. Halevy lived at a time when the European community was recognizing other Jewish composers as well - Meyerbeer and Mendelsohn and later, Offenback and Bizet. Bizet, who wrote "Carmen", became a student of Halevy's, later married Halévy's daughter and thus became his son-in-law.

BACKGROUND TO THE STORY LINE: LA JUIVE is a most dramatic opera - one that allowed the composer, through his main characater, Eleazar, to wrack vengeance on the Christian community in Switerland where he was living for its hundreds of years of atrocities against Halevy's Jewish people. This opera was well received in the middle 1800's. By the early 20's in the 1900's the role of Eleazar became Caruso's most famous and most often performed role. It is seldom performed today. One can wonder if that might be because the opera going public would find it hard to accept an ending that included Eleazar and Rachell, the girl he considered to be his daughter, going to their deaths in a caldron full of burning oil.

Richard Tucker was about to revive it when he died. There are other earlier recordings but there is one of Tucker in concert format along with Martina Arroyo in the role of Rachell. There is a new recording out - also in concert format - but, in this one, it is Jose Carraas who sings the role of Eleazar. Our own Elliot Palay,has often sung the opera's 'Passover Prayer' and 'Oh Rachell' as part of his concert repetoire. As noted before, this opera had its premiere in 1835. Most of us have never heard the words of that prayer, let alone the music - even though the opera itself has been called "a hugh, spectacular opera with massive choruses and splendid scenic effects." The words from the "Prayer" were written by Haléevy's librettist, Augustin Eugene Scribe, a man said to be one of the most productive librettists of his time. They appear at the end of this presentation as part of my own efforts to have it, along with the music, recognized, even though 162 or more years late, as words and music that could or even should be part of our Seder services today.

THE STORY LINE: Program Notes at any performance would inform the audience that Eleazar, as a younger man had lived in Italy near Rome and had seen his sons burned as heretics after being condemmed by a Count Brogni. The audience would read, too, that Eleazar himself was banned from Rome and forced to leave for Switzerland. They would say, too, that on his way to Switzerland Eleazar finds a baby left to die outside a burned out house. The house turns out to be the Count's home. The audience is made aware, too that brigands started that fire and then killed what they thought to be the whole of the Count's family - not knowing that Brogni himself was in Rome. The audience also knows that Eleazar takes the child, a girl, as his own and names her Rachell. As far as Brogoni is concerned, the notes say that after returning to the horror that awaits him, he resolves his grief by joining the church and that over time he becomes a bishop, the Bishop Brogni in this opera.

THE STORY LINE: The opera opens with Eleazar and Rachell, now a young woman, is living with her father in the town of Constance. Eleazar is a jeweler, It is 1544, 52 years after all Jews have been expelled from Spain. Anomosity between Jew and Christian has continued. Laws reflect this. One says that should Jew and Christian become sexually involved , the Christian is excommunicated; the Jew is killed. Rachell, is in love with a young man she believes to be a Jewish student. He knows differently but does not care - he is Leopole, a prince of the area, not only Christian but also married - to the Princess Eudoxie.

Rachell has invited Leopold to the community Passover celebration. He is there while Eleazar and the Jewish townspeople sing their Passover Prayer. Rachell becomes concerned, however, when she notices that Leopold tries to discard the piece of unleavened bread she gives him. It is at this point that he tells her he is really a Christain though he still doesn't tell her who he really is. Rachell is horrified and tells him she didn't know she was offending not only her father but her honor and her God as well. She reminds him of the awful consequences awatiting them both. He promises he will take her away. She tries to hold out, worrying about abandoning ther father, but finally succumbs to his plans out of love for him.

The two are soon confronted by Eleazar who curses Leopold ;who runs away. Rachell follows him to the palace where she reveals his love for her - an action that will lead to death for her and excommunication for him. Eleazar has followed them. As he cries out his defiance, all three are taken to prison. In the next scene, Eudooxie asks for and gets permission to speak to Rachell in prison. She begs Rachell to save Leopold by declaring his innocence. Eudoxie pleads with her to say it was her fault alone and after a beautiful aria, Rachell does just that.

Eudoxie leaves, Bishop Brogni appears and tells Rachell he can save them all. He asks Eleazar to accept Christianity but Eleazar replies that he would rather die first and then takes his first step toward revenge. He reminds the Bishop of the fire in his home in Rome so many years ago and then tells Brodni that his little daughter did not die. He says she was rescued by a Jew and only he, Eleazar, knows tho that Jew might be. Eleazar threatens him that the secret will die with him. Brogni pleads with him but to no avail. It is at this point that Eleazar sings the most poignant yet beautiful aria in the opera. He sings about the revenge he will know as he dies but, then, he suddenly admonishes himself about it being him who will be responsible for Rachell's death. He keens and suffers as he sings that he alone can save her if only he admits he is not her father, and tells the world that she is not Jewish but rather Christian and the daughter of the Bishop.

About to relent, he hears the populace calling for his death and with sudden resolve decides never to yield Rachell to the Christians. Eleazar and Rachell are led toward the Scaffold from which they will be thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil. Rachelle, however if very frightened and he is moved to pity. Eleazar doesn't tell her who she is but does tell her she can live if she decides to accept Christianity. She refuses and climbs the scaffold ahead of him. As the people sing various prayers, the Bishop asks Eleazar once again about his daughter:

'Tell me - Is my daughter still alive?'

'Yes.'

'Lord, where is she?'

Eleazar points to the cauldron as Rachell is thrown in and shouts, 'There - Voila!'

He then mounts the scaffold in triumph as the Bishop falls to his knees in anguish. The opera ends with the unknowing monks, soldiers and townspeople singing:

'It is done ... and we are avenged against the Jews!'

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Jacques Halévy
(1799-1862).