Ideological Diversions: Two Sentimental One-Act Comédies at the Salle Favart, Ca. 1790-99 (original) (raw)
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Genre, Identity, and Institutional Authority at the Paris Opéra in the "Age of Gluck," 1770–1781
2020
In January 1770, the Académie Royale de Musique-more colloquially known as the Paris Opéra-inaugurated its theatre, having lost its original home to a fire in 1762. This new theatre, the first in Paris built specifically for operatic productions, would also meet a fiery end just over a decade later, in June 1781. The lifespan of this theatre frames one of the most tumultuous periods in French operatic history. This decade saw six different administrations, ranging from an authoritarian entrepreneur to self-governance by the performers themselves, each of which employed various tactics to achieve their artistic goals. Under the guidance of these administrations, the Opéra underwent a radical shift in its repertoire and programming. Long considered old-fashioned in its maintenance of operas up to a century old, by decade's end the Opéra had largely abandoned its ancient works and embraced newly composed operas. The Opéra also shifted its programming from repeated performances of a single opera to near-daily variety, with the number of different works performed over the course of a single season trebled by the end of the decade. These quite radical shifts in French operatic culture have gone largely overlooked due to their convergence with the arrival of Christoph Gluck in 1774. While Gluck plays an important part in the history of this period-his arrival in Paris signaled the end of the Paris Opéra's isolation from mainstream European operatic practice-his works have dominated the discourse, obfuscating both the contributions of other composers and the context of the institution itself. Combatting the notion that Gluck was the driving force behind these systemic shifts in late eighteenth-century French opera, this dissertation approaches the period from an institutional ii perspective. I examine the goals and limitations of each administration and argue that the directors, far more than individual composers, had a direct impact on the works that appeared on stage, how they were presented to the audience, and what constituted a "French" opera. I approach the repertoire of the Opéra on a quotidian basis, focusing on the interplay of operas over the course of a season rather than the theatre's most celebrated works. This approach sheds light on relatively unknown composers and operas that are deserving of more in-depth study and draws attention to genres beyond the tragédie lyrique that have received limited attention. It is only through examining the institutional operations and comprehensive repertoire of the Opéra that we can understand how it functioned, both as a for-profit artistic venture that needed to please its paying audience, as well as a site of national identity.
Studi Francesi, 2020
The combination of spectacle and elaborate scenery, orchestra and obligatory dance number made early nineteenth-century French melodrama expensive to produce and, consequently, the genre is strongly associated with the Parisian boulevard theatres. Provincial performances required creative solutions, not least because the music composed forand central tothe Paris performances remained in manuscript form and was not, therefore, distributed automatically to regional theatres, whereas the play text was printed and widely available. This means that different scores existed for the same play, opening up the possibility that provincial audiences were presented with a different concept of melodrama to Parisians. Using as a case study La Forteresse du Danube (1805) by selfproclaimed leading exponent of the genre, Guilbert de Pixerécourt, this article will explore how comparing scores through performance-led research can further our understanding of the changes needed to make a Paris hit performable in the provinces.
Masonic rituals drew upon subject matter and narratives similar to those found in neoclassical tragedy, and managed bodies and spaces in discernibly theatrical ways. But it is the fusion of pathetic, tearful sentiment to bonds that modeled archetypal masculine relationships that most palpably links Masonic ritual to the theater culture of eighteenth-century France. Freemasonry also likely informed French dramaturgy. The valorization of artificial paternal, filial, and fraternal bonds central to Freemasonry became a prevalent theme in French drama in the third quarter of the century. French versions of The London Merchant, which had an outsized impact on the development of French drama, suggest that, regardless of playwrights’ affiliations with Freemasonry, the passionate male bonds promoted by the brotherhood informed late-Enlightenment French dramatic literature.
Much scholarship on French grand opera has understandably focused on the monumentality of the genre—its sweeping historical panoramas, public spectacles, and a large onstage chorus. This focus is reinforced, for example, by Gerhard (1992), who associates the chorus with the Parisian crowd in its diversity, autonomy, and even violence, and by Marian Smith (2000), who contrasts grand operas magnificent urban and indoor settings with the bucolic countryside locales of ballet-pantomime. Yet this emphasis on the “grandness” of grand opera has obscured the dramaturgical significance of private gardens within French opera of the 1830s and ’40s. While Marguerite’s garden in Act II of Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots has long been acknowledged as a forbidden, feminine realm (Hadlock 2000; Smart 2004), the prevalence of the jardin des femmes as a scenic convention in nineteenth-century French grand opera remains unexplored. In this paper, I examine garden scenes of Auber’s La Muette de Portici, Donizetti’s La Favorite, Halévy’s La Reine de Chypre, and Verdi’s Jérusalem to demonstrate the frequent use of the enclosed garden as a scenic frame for clandestine encounters, solitary confessions, and homosocial intimacy. My principal argument is that the garden settings of French grand opera are represented as feminine spaces through a complex of textual, visual, and musical cues. Drawing on feminist critiques of the metaphoric transcoding of woman, space, and landscape (Luce Irigaray 1985; Sue Best 1995; Gillian Rose 1995), I posit that certain repeated musico-visual images encourage a mode of looking and listening that conflates admiration of idyllic garden scenery with admiration of the female body. The collusion of gender, sexuality, and nature has been analyzed by Allanbrook (1983), Hunter (1991), and DeNora (1997) in Mozart’s buffa operas and by Senici (2005) in nineteenth-century Italian opera, but this paper is the first to argue a similar case for French grand opera.
Dramatic Experience, 2017
Opening Spaces for the Reading Audience: Fernando de Rojas's Celestina (1499/1502) and Niccolò Machiavelli's Mandragola (1518) 13 Sven Thorsten Kilian 2 Why Do Men Go Blind in the Theatre? Gender Riddles and Fools' Play in the Italian Renaissance Comedy Gl'Ingannati (1532) 35 Katja Gvozdeva 3 The Accademia degli Alterati and the Invention of a New Form of Dramatic Experience: Myth, Allegory, and Theory in Jacopo Peri's and Ottavio Rinuccini's Euridice (1600) 77 Déborah Blocker 4 Il favore degli dei (1690): Meta-Opera and Metamorphoses at the Farnese Court 118 Wendy Heller 5 Entertainment for Melancholics: The Public and the Public Stage in Carlo Gozzi's L'Amore delle tre melarance 140 2013 within the framework of the European Research Council Advanced Grant Project entitled Early Modern European Drama and the Cultural Net (DramaNet) at the Freie Universität Berlin that brought together experts on Eastern and Western early modern drama. The creative process that produced this book has been a wonderful experience of transnational scholarly collaboration. We would like to express our gratitude for the opportunity to work with excellent specialists of early modern drama in Germany and abroad, and we wish to thank all our contributors for making the effort to write, rewrite, and correct their texts, patiently waiting for the final published result. We would also like to thank the institutions and individuals who supported us throughout the organisation of the conference that inspired this volume and during the compilation of the collection itself. First, Professor Joachim Küpper, whose theoretical concepts shaped the DramaNet project, and thus the present volume. Second, the European Research Council, without whose financial support neither conference nor volume production would have been possible. Third, all DramaNet members who participated in this project at its different stages and in its various aspects, both conceptual and organisational, above all project coordinators Konstanze Ameer and Agnes Kloocke. Gratitude is also due the general editor of Drama and Theatre in Early Modern Europe, Jan Bloemendal, for his willingness to include this volume in his series, and for the care he has taken in the publication of this volume. Finally, we would like to express our thanks to Amyrose McCue Gill of TextFormations for her professional competence, enthusiasm, wise critical remarks and suggestions, and for her valuable help with the pre-production editing of the essays in this collection. List of Illustrations and Tables Illustrations 1 Emblem of the Accademia degli Intronati. Frontispiece. First edition of Gl'Ingannati (1537): https://archive.org/stream/ glingannaticonil00newb#page/n23/mode/2up 42 2 Potta da Modena, by Master of the Metopes (twelfth century). Modena, Cathedral Lapidary Museum. Photo courtesy I. Sailko 64 3 Modena coats of arms, Sala del Fuoco, Palazzo Comunale. CC BY-SA 3.0 65 4 Emblem of the Accademia degli Intronati (1533). Drawing.
European Theatre and the French Revolution
2012
Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The encyclopedia of Romantic literature/ edited by Frederick Burwick ; associate editors, Nancy Moore Goslee, and Diane Long Hoeveler. p. cm.-(The Wiley-Blackwell encyclopedia of literature) Includes bibliographical references and index.