Author: Lacombe, Herve
Title: The Keys to French Opera in the Nineteenth Century
Description: Berkeley, Univ. of California Press, (2001). orig.cloth. 24x15cm, xv,415 pp, 'Les voies de l’opera francais au XIXe siècle' translated by Edward Schneider.. Textual ilustrations. Minor rubbing. VG. ¶ Contents: Genesis, Performance & Reception; Drama, Poetry & Music: The Construction of a Drama; Space & Time; Poetic Expression & Musical Expression; French Opera: Society, Genre & Aesthetics: The Parisian Operatic World; Genre; The Aesthetic Foundations of 19th-Century French Opera; Conclusion; Appendices. ["The "keys" provided by Herve Lacombe in this richly informed book open the door to understanding the essence of nineteenth-century French lyric theater. Lacombe illuminates the diverse elements that constitute opera by focusing his investigation around three main categories: composition and production words, music, and drama and the interaction of society, genre, and aesthetics. Lacombe chooses Bizet's Pearl Fishers (1863) as the exemplar of French opera that combines tradition and innovation. He uses Pearl Fishers as a paradigmatic point of reference for exploring questions of genesis, style, and aesthetic in other nineteenth-century French operatic works. French opera was a social art, he writes, and looping between past and future, between tradition and innovation, it achieved the seemingly impossible union of two antithetical aspects of Romanticism: the taste for theatricality and the desire for intimacy.The voices of contemporary witnesses are heard throughout Lacombe's book. He makes abundant use of the writings of such musician-critics as Berlioz, Reyer, and Saint-Saens and also draws on the works of many French writers, including Stendhal, Balzac, Baudelaire, and Zola..." - Publisher's description]

Keywords: French Opera History, France, Nineteenth Century, Musicology Musical, Lyric Theatre, Georges Bizet, Music Theater, ,