Gr Try S Operas And The French Public

The core of André Ernest Modeste Grétry's appeal was his mastery of song. His melodies were exported out of the opera house into every corner of French life, serving as folkloristic tokens of celebration and solidarity. His death in 1813 was one of the sensations of the age, setting off months of commemorations and revivals of his work. To under

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

Closely examining five French operas, this book reveals how and why grand opera sought to bring the past alive.

In Staging the French Revolution, author Mark Darlow offers an unprecedented opportunity to consider the material context of opera production, combining in-depth archival research with a study of the works themselves. He argues that a mixture of popular and State interventions created a repressive system in which cultural institutions retained agency, compelling individuals to follow and contribute to a shifting culture. Theatre thereby emerged as a locus for competing discourses on patriotism, society, the role of the arts in the Republic, and the articulation of the Revolution's relation with the 'Old Regime', and is thus an essential key to the understanding of public opinion and publicity at this crucial historical moment.

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.

Professor Fulcher argues that French grand opera was a subtly used tool of the state.