About the work
Esmeralda is Alexander Dargomyzhsky's first opera, composed around 1839 after his own translation of Victor Hugo's stage adaptation of his novel Notre-Dame de Paris. Unable to find a theatre willing to stage it, the composer set the work aside; it was not premiered until 17 December 1847, at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, without lasting success.
Plot
In 15th-century Paris, the gypsy dancer Esmeralda loves the captain Phoebus, but is desired by the archdeacon Frollo and admired from afar by the bell-ringer Quasimodo. Frollo's jealousy and a plot against Esmeralda lead to catastrophe.
Cultural significance
As Dargomyzhsky's debut, still in conventional number-opera form, Esmeralda anticipates themes and dramatic intensifications that he resolved more radically, in musical terms, in Rusalka and The Stone Guest.