French evolution.(Viewpoint)

Curiously, La Juive and Benvenuto Cellini--the two operas marking their Chevron Texaco broadcast debuts this month--both were created during the glory days of French grand opera, an era in musical history now underrepresented in that loosely organized catalogue of works labeled "the standard repertory." La Juive was a smash hit when it opened in Paris in 1835, the reputation-making success of Fromental Halevy, its highly popular composer. Just over three years later, the premiere of Cellini in the same city was greeted with derision, a frustrating near-miss for the revolutionary genius Hector Berlioz. La Juive entered the repertory of the fledgling Metropolitan Opera in 1885--before the company premieres of Aida, Die Meistersinger and Tristan und Isolde--such was the seemingly unassailable importance of Halevy's masterwork at the time. Cellini remained a musical curiosity in most of the world for the better part of a century; its first American performances didn't happen until 1975, when it was taken on by Sarah Caldwell's maverick Opera Company of Boston, with Jon Vickers in the title role.

Posterity, of course, has changed the fortunes of these operas. La Juive has been absent from the repertory of the Metropolitan since 1936, its grandly conceived ...