[Librettist Gene Scheer based his libretto upon the Emile Zola novel, Thérèse Raquin. The following article centers on Zola and the creation of the original novel. - NMR]
In converting a novel or a play into an opera, abridgement is necessary, and much must be left out. The following notes on the original story supply some of the background only hinted at in the opera.
Zola placed his actions in real places. The Raquin shop was located in the Passage du Pont-Neuf, which Zola described as, "a sort of narrow dark corridor connecting rue Mazarine with rue de Seine. It was built in 1823 on the site of the former Comédie-Française. This passage is thirty yards long and two in width,...with a flat, glazed roofing black with grime". It was lined with shallow shops with window displays grey with dust. The passage no longer exists; in 1912 a small street, the rue Jacques-Callot, was cut through in its place. This can still be found, south of the River Seine, opposite the Louvre.
BACKGROUND
Madame Raquin runs a haberdashery shop in Vernon, thirty-five
miles north-west of Paris. Her son, Camille, is sickly and coddled. One day
her brother arrives from Algeria with a little girl and announces, "You are
this little girl's aunt. Her mother is dead. I don't know what to do with her.
Here you are, you have her". Thérèse grows up sharing Camille's
bed, coddled like him and, in spite of her robust physique, is forced to live
like an invalid. She always has to be quiet and to hide her boundless energy
and passion inherited from her Algerian mother. Her aunt sees Thérèse
as someone who can look after Camille when she is dead, and the children grow
up with the idea that some day they will marry.
After her husband dies, Mme. Raquin sells her shop for forty thousand francs, enough to allow her to retire to a small house with a little garden overlooking the River Seine. Camille has had almost no education, but at age eighteen, he has the gumption to get a boring job with a cloth merchant. A week after Thérèse and Camille are married, he suddenly announces that he will go to live in Paris. Mme. Raquin decides to go along with idea and to get a small shop in Paris to augment their income. Thérèse is not consulted; when she gets to the new shop, she feels she is going down into her grave.
Life in Paris is a boring rut except for Thursday evenings. Mme. Raquin has found some of her old friends including Police Superintendent Michaud (not in the opera), his son Olivier, and his wife Suzanne. (Olivier is a clerk in the police office.) Soon the Thursday evening domino games begin; Camille brings Grivet who worked in his office. They play in silence while Therese either sits with the cat, François, in her lap or pleads a headache so she need not play. The whole scene depresses her.
One Thursday, Camille brings home Laurent whom they had known as a boy, and who now works in same office as Camille. '[Thérèse] had never seen a real man before.' She studies him, marveling at his physique. Laurent dabbles in painting and he took the boring job while waiting for his father to die and he can live a life of leisure. The legal profession, for which he was trained, appalls him. Laurent's presence throws Thérèse into 'a sort of nervous anguish', but he hesitates to seduce her, because he thinks she is not pretty and he does not love her. However, she is at hand and will not cost money as his other women do. They make love for the first time when Camille goes out for the champagne after the picture is finished.
All of Thérèse's passions come out when she is with Laurent, who becomes almost a member of the family. Thérèse plays her part 'to perfection, thanks to the cunning hypocrisy with which her upbringing had endowed her'. She has had fifteen years of lying and covering her true feelings. While she knows she is doing wrong, she feels no guilt.
Prophetically, the portrait gives Camille the 'greenish look of a drowned man...with twisted features'.
After the murder Laurent haunts the morgue until Camille's body is brought in. The gruesome description of the morgue is one reason the novel was criticized when it was first published. For the fifteen months after Camille's death, Laurent still calls at the shop, but the couple avoids being alone together, and they do not make love. For a while, Therese is at peace and happy to be alone in the bed she had always shared with Camille. She takes to reading novels, joins a subscription library, and falls in love with all of the heroes in the books. Laurent remembers the murder and breaks out into cold sweat at the thought he might be discovered. He lets himself get fat and sloppy. From then on, whenever Laurent is upset, blood rushes to the scar on his neck, causing it to throb painfully. He has vivid dreams in which he sees the dead Camille in the morgue.
Thérèse also starts to have dreams of Camille and begins to act overwrought, laughing and crying for no reason. Both think they will eventually marry. When they are together at night, the dreams will stop. He will be able to leave the office, do some painting, and be a gentleman of leisure. Meanwhile he takes a model as a lover.
When their friends decides the couple should marry, Laurent demurs — he loves Thérèse like a sister — but finally submits to their urging. They no longer want to marry for lust, but to do away with their sleepless nights; they will not be afraid any more. However, as in the opera, the wedding night is agony.
After her stroke, the couple cares for Mme. Raquin like a baby. They have to keep her alive so they will not be left alone together. In spite of their inner anguish, publically they remain calm and happy. Laurent quits his job and rents a studio in which to paint and, surprisingly, now shows talent. However, everyone he paints looks like Camille. Thérèse starts going out, drinking absinthe, having affairs and consorting with prostitutes. She become pregnant but provokes Laurent so he kicks her in the stomach causing a miscarriage. The final scene is the same as in the opera.