Les vêpres followed immediately after Verdi's three great mid-career masterpieces, Rigoletto, Il trovatore and La traviata of 1850 to 1853 and was first performed at the Paris Opéra on 13 June 1855.

[1] After Verdi's first grand opera for the Paris Opéra – his adaptation of I Lombardi in 1847 given under the title of Jérusalem – the composer had wanted to write a completely new grand opera for the company, the appeal being the same as that which influenced all Italian composers of the day: the challenges of a form different from that of their homeland and the ability to appeal to an audience which welcomed novelty.

[2] In July 1852, Verdi had written to Scribe outlining his hopes: I should like, I need a subject that is grandiose, impassioned and original; a mise-en-scène that is imposing and overwhelming.

[3]When Scribe missed his July 1853 deadline, Verdi went to Paris to negotiate directly and it was then that the librettist proposed a solution, using a revised version of the libretto for Le duc d'Albe,[4] 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).

[6] 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.

[5] 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was now firmly in the epoch of Napoleon III, meaning "that the social foundation on which [grand opera] rested was now withdrawn").

[7] Verdi spent 1854 forcing Scribe to make revisions while writing the music, "complaining about the sheer length demanded by audiences at the Opéra".

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 ...

La Presse noted: "Verdi's music has conformed to the procedure invented by French genius without losing anything of its Italian ardour.

[9] 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 that shines throughout ... communicate to this opera an imprint of grandeur, a species of sovereign majesty more distinguishable than in this composer's earlier products.

Because the original version never entered the established repertory, performances "limped along"[5] until Verdi attempted to aid its revival at the Paris Opéra on 6 July 1863 by revising some of the roles for selected singers.

Except for this one revival in Paris in 1863, "it vanished from the Parisian stage altogether" [13] After a long period of relative neglect, the opera in its original French version has begun to appear onstage more regularly in the 21st century.

[16] The Royal Opera House Covent Garden's staging of the full version for the first time in its history (minus the ballet) in October/November 2013 drew a variety of critical responses.

The composer was aware that in Italy at that time, it would have been impossible to place the story in Sicily, as he notes to his publisher Giulio Ricordi in April 1855: "I shall ... (change) the subject so as to render it acceptable for Italian theatres.

Prior to the events of the opera, Procida, a leading Sicilian patriot, was wounded by French troops during their invasion of Sicily, and was forced into exile.

Led by Robert, a group of French soldiers arrive and Procida returns and sees that it is too late to save Henri, since the young people have come into the square and have begun to dance.

The dejected young men witness a passing boat filled with French nobles and Sicilian women, all bound for the ball.

Ah, you speak to a heart already prepared to forgive") Not seeing Henri, Procida approaches Hélène and reveals a letter telling him of awaiting freedom.

He leaves to find his father, but Procida arrives, announcing a plan to outwit his enemies with their massacre to take place at the foot of the altar after the vows have been said.

Here the model of Meyerbeer was important ... Secondly, he seized the opportunity of solving a problem which had eluded him in a somewhat similar work, La battaglia di Legnano; namely that of reconciling the private and public emotions of the main characters. ...

Parker states "with very few exceptions, its main lyrical numbers lack the melodic immediacy of the trio of Italian operas (Rigoletto, Il trovatore and La traviata) that immediately preceded it.

"[26] However, he does go on to say that Les vêpres "marks a decisive turn away from the language of the middle-period Italian operas and the emergence of many stylistic features we associate with the later Verdi.

[27](Italics in the original).Kolodin comments: "It was, of course, the principle by which Verdi's later career was guided when he had the land and the position he craved and the security that went with them and a wise wife.