Rachel, quand du Seigneur (La Juive)

La Juive was first performed at the Paris Opéra on 23 February 1835 and remained, for most of the century that followed, one of the house's most frequently staged works. Eugène Scribe's libretto is set in Constance in 1414, during the church council, and turns on a Jewish goldsmith, the daughter he has raised and the cardinal who does not know she is his own child. The production was among the most expensive the Opéra had mounted. Éléazar's fourth-act aria, in which he weighs revenge against the girl's life, was added late at the request of the tenor Adolphe Nourrit.