revised version of the libretto for Le duc d'Albe, one which had been written about 20 years before at the height of the French grand opera tradition and which had previously been offered to Halévy (who refused it) and to Donizetti (who partly set it to music in 1839 under the original title). Verdi raised many objections, many of these being outlined in a letter from Scribe to Duveyrier of December 1853. They included a change of location, of characters' names, certain specific situations (there being no beer halls in Sicily, for example), plus a demand for a "standard" fifth act to make it equivalent to Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots or Le Prophète. However, this "meant that Verdi was writing his first (original) opéra at a point at which the genre was in a state of flux". Musicologist Julian Budden adds: "In opting for the grandest possible scale, Verdi was running against the current of fashion" (which he notes had significantly shifted in the months and years following the 1848 uprising, so that the country was now firmly in the epoch of Napoleon III, meaning "that the social foundation on which [grand opera] rested was now withdrawn"). Verdi spent 1854 forcing Scribe to make revisions while writing the music, "complaining about the sheer length demanded by audiences at the Opéra". Overall, it was a frustrating time for the composer, especially in dealing with Scribe's 5th act. The librettist was unresponsive to Verdi's pleas for revisions, until finally, he was forced in late 1854 (with no premiere in sight and the mysterious disappearance from rehearsals of Sophie Cruvelli, who sang Hélène) to write to the Opera's director, Louis Crosnier: "To avoid the catastrophe that menaces us ... I see but one means and I do not hesitate to propose it: dissolution of the contract". However, Verdi persevered and was present at the June 1855 premiere, by then having spent close to two years in Paris working on the opera. Performance history 19th century The first performance at the Paris Opéra on 13 June 1855 was received to great acclaim. La Presse noted: "Verdi's music has conformed to the procedure invented by French genius without losing anything of its Italian ardour. Hector Berlioz wrote: "In Les vêpres the penetrating intensity of the melodic expressiveness, the sumptuous, wise variety of the instrumentation, the vastness and poetic sonority of the concerted pieces, the hot colour