18th century french art
18th century french history
A01=Jacqueline Letzter
A01=Robert Adelson
art
artists
Author_Jacqueline Letzter
Author_Robert Adelson
cabals
Category=AVLF
Category=JBSF1
Category=NHD
concert halls
creative women
cultural production
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_music
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
french history
french revolution
french writers
gender studies
intrigues
isabelle de charriere
journalistic invective
librettists
music
music composition
musicology
opera
opera music
political upheaval
post revolution france
recognition
social upheaval
sociology
studies on the history of society and culture series
women and gender studies
women composers
women writers
Product details
- ISBN 9780520226531
- Weight: 680g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 12 Aug 2001
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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In the age of the French Revolution, opera was the locus of cabals, intrigues, and violent journalistic invective. Yet it was also a period when women composers and librettists gained access to concert halls as never before, some of their works among those most performed in Paris. Jacqueline Letzter and Robert Adelson's engaging history explains what made this possible. At the same time it demonstrates how the Revolution fostered many dreams and ambitions for women that would be doomed to disappointment in the repressive post-Revolutionary era. The first part of the book concentrates on the women who succeeded in bringing their operas to the stage. The authors examine their backgrounds, the institutional barriers they had to surmount, and the problems they faced in asserting their authority and authorship. The book's second half is a detailed case study of Isabelle de Charriere (1740-1805), a prolific author and composer who witnessed the success of her female colleagues but was unable to gain recognition for herself. In an analytical epilogue Letzter and Adelson discuss the status of creative women in Revolutionary culture and society.
Jacqueline Letzter is Assistant Professor of French at the University of Maryland, College Park. Robert Adelson is Assistant Professor of Clarinet at Towson University.
