Keys to French Opera in the Nineteenth Century
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A01=Herve Lacombe
aesthetics
alfred bruneau
art
Author_Herve Lacombe
balzac
berlioz
bizet
Category=AVLF
Category=GTM
censorship
composer
drama
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_music
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
ernest reyer
faust
french drama
french literature
french opera
german opera
gounod
grand opera
les pecheurs de perles
libretto
light opera
lyric drama
lyric theater
music
music theory
musical theater
nonfiction
opera
opera comique
patronage
reynaldo hahn
saint saens
second empire
stendahl
theater
theatre lyrique
theatrical production
wagner
Product details
- ISBN 9780520217195
- Weight: 816g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 12 Jan 2001
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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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. Illustrations showing costume sketches, scenery, posters, paintings, photographs, and magazine articles are attractive complements to discussions of particular operas. Together with Edward Schneider's accessible translation, the illustrations make this well-rounded and original study a trove of information for both music scholars and French historians.
Herve Lacombe teaches at the University of Metz. He is working on another book about Bizet. Edward Schneider lives in New York and is a translator specializing in works about music and food.
