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Halevy's Opera La Juive The jolly opera La Juive was composed by (Jacques) Fromental Halevy who lived from 1799-1862. He was director of singing at the Opera and taught at the Conservatoire. I am listening to it now as I type this. The opening is a grand chorus, very lively, although the ending is sad and dramatic, a sort of Jewish Tosca. Mahler called it 'one of the greatest operas ever created'. This Grand Opera was much more popular in the last century when budgets were not so tight. It was first performed in 1835 at the Paris Opera, and another 562 times until 1934. The Friends of French Opera in New York helped produce the recording which I have. Halevi worked with the aptly named Scribe who wrote the words, with the aid of assistants, I presume in French. Although the theme is about a Jewish father and his adopted suffering at the hands of anti-Semites, the opera was loved in its heyday for its spectacular drama, costumes and crowd scenes. The opera is set in 1414, when Rachel, of the Jewish Jeweller Eleazar, falls in love with the artist 'Samuel' whom she does not know is Christian and married, Prince Leopold in disguise. Leopold saves Rachel and her father from an angry crowd. The recording's notes give a synopsis of the plot. The five act opera has a twist in each act. These include the fact that Rachel was not born Jewish, but is the long-lost of the chief persecutor, the Cardinal. She was rescued as a baby from a disaster. Jewish-Christian love is punishable by death. Leopold reveals the life-threatening truth about his identity to Rachel, then to her father. To compound the embarrassment, jealousy and danger, Leopold's wife arrives at the jeweller's to buy her husband a gift. Rachel saves Leopold from death by lying to conceal their relationship. Eleazar knows the secret of where the cardinal's was taken, but if he is killed the cardinal will never know. The end is the attempt to save Rachel from death at the hands of the mob if she will be baptized. But she refuses to abandon her faith and instead chooses to dramatically leap and die. Her real father, the Cardinal, arrives too late to save her. Eleazar's last act, before leaping to his death after Rachel, is to reveal that the Cardinal has caused the death of his own . In the notes the portrait showing Halevy as a young man with small round glasses is from the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris. I have borrowed from a friend the three cassette recording in which tenor Jose Carreras sings the part of Eleazar. Caruso also sang this part. Halevy's pupils included Bizet. Wagner and Mahler admired the opera. The opera is in French but the notes also translate the French words into English, German and Italian. I am sure you would enjoy reading more about the opera and the composer. Halevi's bust is on the front of the Paris opera house. Halevi's Genevieve married his pupil Bizet. When she was widowed she became the model for a character in Proust's novel. Halevi's nephew was the librettist for Bizet's Carmen. The name Halevy means the Levite. Other famous people of the same name include the Spanish poet. If you have any details or comments to add, I'd be glad to hear them. 
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