Giacomo Meyerbeer, Dinorah; ou, Le pardon de Ploërmel (1859)

So after composing three megahit grand operas, you might think Meyerbeer would've continued in this vein, but not so.  Even before Le prophète, he had started the opera that would become L'Africaine, which he tinkered around with for the rest of his life, and which was only performed posthumously.  But in the meantime, he wrote some less ambitious operas: the Singspiel Ein Feldlager in Schlesien, this, and L'étoile du nord (which reused some of the music and story from Feldlager).  He was already rich, so he didn't have to work any harder than he wanted to.

This is a folklore-based piece.  Dinorah, alas, has gone insane because her bridegroom Hoël disappeared on their wedding day, one year ago.  But now, he has returned, having discovered a treasure that he wants to retrieve (was he looking for that for the whole year?  It is never explained).  He enlists the help of a cowardly bagpiper named Corentin to help him retrieve it.  There's a dark twist: legend says that the first person to touch the treasure will die within the year.  So they argue about that for a bit.  Dinorah falls in the river but Hoël rescues her and she stops being insane.  They give up on the treasure and are happy.  The end.

Yes, well.  This is Meyerbeer's only French opera with a libretto not by Eugene Scribe, and it certainly feels different.  Meyerbeer's music is good as always (even if it lacks the highlights of his best work) but the plot is a bit of a mess, feeling very vague and unexplained: why WAS Hoël away for so long?  What even IS this treasure?  And what kind of person is he supposed to be?  I'm sorry to say that as played here by Armand Arapian, he looks like a deranged prospector, which...actually might sort of match the libretto.  But that's not really a good thing either way.  There are also a bunch of superfluous pastoral scenes of farmers, hunters, and herders; not that you necessarily need justification for superfluity in an opera, but it all doesn't really work for me.  And what IS this "Pardon," anyway?  It's clearly some sort of religious ceremony, but who's being pardoned?  For what?  It is never made clear.  There ARE some dancing sheep and goats in this production that are pretty fun, though.

I dunno; I wouldn't place this in the forefront of Meyerbeer's oeuvre.  But I have high hopes that, especially with Scribe's participation, L'étoile du nord will be more to my taste.