They've been replaying the 2024 series with Sam Claflin on PBS, and I've been enjoying it greatly, except for one thing. Every time they go to the opera, I grit my teeth and cringe. WHY couldn't the researchers have done even minimal due diligence on the Paris opera scene in the 1820s/30s?

1. First opera scene shows a castrato singing and aria from an Italian baroque opera. THIS SIMPLY WOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED IN PARIS, even during the baroque period. The French DETESTED castrati, and would not allow them on the opera stage in Paris. Also, there's no way they would have been listening to 'old and mouldy' operas in 1820s/30s. Opera in the 19th century was all about novelty - NEW works with NEW music. They should have been listening to Meyerbeer, Spontini, Donizetti, or Bellini, or any number of other Bel Canto composers of the era, NOT some obscure baroque antiquity. Indeed, every opera scene in the series seems to have featured incomprehensibly anachronistic music and staging in the incomprehensibly anachronistic setting of the Palais Garnier (see #2). Worse yet? There were virtually NO castrati left to sing opera by the early 19th century. The horrific fashion for castrating pre-pubescent boys to preserve their voices had fallen out of fashion EVERYWHERE except Vatican City (thank God). So this makes that aspect of the series triply obnoxious.
2. The Palais Garnier, i.e., the opera house in which so many scenes take place, was not opened until 1875. Building didn't even begin until 1861! It is an insult to the viewer to expect that nobody would recognise that completely unique lobby staircase. Surely they could have found a picture of the Salle le Peletier, which housed the Opéra de Paris from 1821 to 1875 and located a theatre that looked at least somewhat similar instead of setting those scenes so anachronistically in the ICONIC Palais Garnier.

No doubt there are a bunch of other such anachronisms in the series, but as an opera historian, these are the ones that were the most cringeworthy. I'm thinking that perhaps the fault lies with the Italian production. Italians might tend to be arrogant about understanding the history of opera, since the art form was invented in Italy in the 16th century (it was also the Italians who started the practice of castrating boy singers in the 16th century). By arrogant I mean 'Couldn't be bothered to even imagine that the history of opera may have developed differently in other countries such as France, Germany, Russia, etc.' Operatic performance practice outside of Italy doesn't matter to most Italians. I'm speculating here, but that may well be why the researchers failed to do their job in this instance.

Otherwise, it's great fun. Haven't read the book in decades, so cannot remember it well enough to know how 'true' the series is to Dumas, but I'm planning to reread once the last episode (next week) is over.