Opera and the Political Imaginary in Old Regime France

Opera and the Political Imaginary in Old Regime France PDF Author: Olivia Bloechl
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022652275X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 301

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Book Description
From its origins in the 1670s through the French Revolution, serious opera in France was associated with the power of the absolute monarchy, and its ties to the crown remain at the heart of our understanding of this opera tradition (especially its foremost genre, the tragédie en musique). In Opera and the Political Imaginary in Old Regime France, however, Olivia Bloechl reveals another layer of French opera’s political theater. The make-believe worlds on stage, she shows, involved not just fantasies of sovereign rule but also aspects of government. Plot conflicts over public conduct, morality, security, and law thus appear side-by-side with tableaus hailing glorious majesty. What’s more, opera’s creators dispersed sovereign-like dignity and powers well beyond the genre’s larger-than-life rulers and gods, to its lovers, magicians, and artists. This speaks to the genre’s distinctive combination of a theological political vocabulary with a concern for mundane human capacities, which is explored here for the first time. By looking at the political relations among opera characters and choruses in recurring scenes of mourning, confession, punishment, and pardoning, we can glimpse a collective political experience underlying, and sometimes working against, ancienrégime absolutism. Through this lens, French opera of the period emerges as a deeply conservative, yet also more politically nuanced, genre than previously thought.

Opera and the Political Imaginary in Old Regime France

Opera and the Political Imaginary in Old Regime France PDF Author: Olivia Bloechl
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022652275X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 301

Get Book Here

Book Description
From its origins in the 1670s through the French Revolution, serious opera in France was associated with the power of the absolute monarchy, and its ties to the crown remain at the heart of our understanding of this opera tradition (especially its foremost genre, the tragédie en musique). In Opera and the Political Imaginary in Old Regime France, however, Olivia Bloechl reveals another layer of French opera’s political theater. The make-believe worlds on stage, she shows, involved not just fantasies of sovereign rule but also aspects of government. Plot conflicts over public conduct, morality, security, and law thus appear side-by-side with tableaus hailing glorious majesty. What’s more, opera’s creators dispersed sovereign-like dignity and powers well beyond the genre’s larger-than-life rulers and gods, to its lovers, magicians, and artists. This speaks to the genre’s distinctive combination of a theological political vocabulary with a concern for mundane human capacities, which is explored here for the first time. By looking at the political relations among opera characters and choruses in recurring scenes of mourning, confession, punishment, and pardoning, we can glimpse a collective political experience underlying, and sometimes working against, ancienrégime absolutism. Through this lens, French opera of the period emerges as a deeply conservative, yet also more politically nuanced, genre than previously thought.

Charles Garnier's Paris Opéra

Charles Garnier's Paris Opéra PDF Author: Christopher Curtis Mead
Publisher: MIT Press (MA)
ISBN:
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
By making systematic use of the mostly unpublished Opera Archive, Mead fills in the missing links to previous investigations and unlocks the significance of this seminal masterpiece.

Birth of French Opera

Birth of French Opera PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description


French Opera 1730-1830: Meaning and Media

French Opera 1730-1830: Meaning and Media PDF Author: David Charlton
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 104023190X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 390

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Book Description
The majority of these collected essays date from 1992 onwards, three of them having been specially expanded for this volume. Drawing on recent archival research and new musicological theory, they investigate distinctive qualities in French opera from early opéra comique to early grand opera. ’Media’ is interpreted in terms of both narrative systems and practical theatre resources. One group of essays identifies narrative systems in ’minuet-scenes’, in the diegetic romance, and in special uses of musical motives. Another group concerns the theory and æsthetics of opera, in which uses of metaphor help us interpret audience reception. A third group focuses on orchestral and staging practices, brought together in a new theory of the 'melodrama model’ linking various genres from the 1780s with the world of the 1820s. French opera’s relation with literature and politics is a continuing theme, explored in writings on prison scenes, Ossian, and public-private dramaturgy in grand opera. David Charlton has written widely on French music and opera topics for over 25 years. The selection of his articles presented here focuses on the period 1730-1830 when Paris was a hotbed of influential ideas in music and music theatre, with many of these ideas taken up by foreign composers. This volume assesses the French contribution to the development of Classical and Romantic styles and genres which has hitherto not received the attention it deserves.

French Opera at the Fin de Siècle

French Opera at the Fin de Siècle PDF Author: Steven Huebner
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780199719921
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 552

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Book Description
This is the first book-length study of the rich operatic repertory written and performed in France during the last two decades of the nineteenth century. Steven Huebner gives an accessible and colorful account of such operatic favorites as Manon and Werther by Massenet, Louise by Charpentier, and lesser-known gems such as Chabrier's Le Roi malgré lui and Chausson's Le Roi Arthus.

Jean-Baptiste Lully

Jean-Baptiste Lully PDF Author: Ralph Henry Forster Scott
Publisher: Peter Owen Publishers
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 148

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Book Description
The first biography in English of the French composer Jean-Baptiste Lully, an important figure in the history of music as the originator of French opera and the leading impresario of his day.

Milton's Comus

Milton's Comus PDF Author: John Milton
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 150

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Book Description


The Keys to French Opera in the Nineteenth Century

The Keys to French Opera in the Nineteenth Century PDF Author: Hervé Lacombe
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520217195
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 440

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Book Description
A lively history of French opera in its cultural and historical context by one of France's leading musicologists.

French Opera

French Opera PDF Author: Norman Demuth
Publisher: [Chester Springs, Pa.] : Dufour
ISBN:
Category : Opera
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description


The Lyric Art of Pierre Perrin, Founder of French Opera: Birth of French opera

The Lyric Art of Pierre Perrin, Founder of French Opera: Birth of French opera PDF Author: Louis E. Auld
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Libretto
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description