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The dissertation analyzes the projects of popular theater devised by the republican governments and assemblies, 1878 to 1893, in order to understand the conflicted point of view of republicans with regard to the democratization of art. In the 1880s, the four state-subsidized theaters (the Opéra, the Opéra-Comique, the Comédie-Française, and the Odéon) had a very select audience. Yet, republicans were divided on the issue of its diversification. On the one hand, the purportedly inferior moral capacities of the popular public made dramatic performances hazardous without a prior education of its will. On the other hand, it was fair to let people who paid for the upkeep of state-subsidized ...
This edited volume brings together academic specialists writing on the multi-media operatic form from a range of disciplines: comparative literature, history, sociology, and philosophy. The presence in the volume's title of Pierre Bourdieu, the leading cultural sociologist of the late twentieth century, signals the editors' intention to synthesise advances in social science with advances in musicological and other scholarship on opera. Through a focus on opera in Italy and France, the contributors to the volume draw on their respective disciplines both to expand our knowledge of opera's history and to demonstrate the kinds of contributions that stand to be made by different disciplines to the study of opera. The volume is divided into three sections, each of which is preceded by a concise and informative introduction explaining how the chapters in that section contribute to our understanding of opera.
Music, the Market, and the Marvellous examines féerie, the French fairy play, in the last third of the nineteenth century. It is among the first book-length studies on the genre, the first in a language other than French, and the first from a musicological perspective. Sabbatini demonstrates that, contrary to conventional wisdom, féerie was still thriving during the fin de siècle, giving rise to innovations such as composerly féerie and scientific féerie. The plays, the theatre industry, and urban geography are discussed together, as befits a commercial genre where the marvellous was shaped by the market. Recovering this forgotten ^—^ but once hugely influential ^—^ repertoire provides an occasion to rethink generic taxonomies of Parisian theatre and the ontology of nineteenth-century 'popular' theatre.
"Jann Pasler's remarkable Composing the Citizen reaches well beyond what any book concerned with music in society has ever attempted. Concentrating on France of the Third Republic, from the 1870s through the early 1900s, she demonstrates convincingly how music--whether new, old, popular, or élite, whether performed at institutions of state (such as the Opéra), the Folies Bergère, concert halls, or the zoo--helped to redefine what it meant to be French under evolving political circumstances. Equally adept in the languages of history, sociology, political science, reception history, and music analysis, Pasler establishes music's cultural significance and implicitly illuminates the role it c...
A bold application of the concept of canonical works to the development of French operatic and concert life in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
The 1889 Exposition universelle in Paris is famous as a turning point in the history of French music, and modern music generally. This book explores the ways in which music was used, exhibited, listened to, and written about during the Exposition universelle. It also reveals the sociopolitical uses of music in France during the 19th century.
This pioneering study of ballets staged in Parisian music halls brings to light a vibrant dance culture central to the renewal of French choreography at the fin de siècle.
Opera Acts explores a wealth of new historical material about singers in the late nineteenth century and challenges the idea that this was a period of decline for the opera singer. In detailed case studies of four figures - the late Verdi baritone Victor Maurel; Bizet's first Carmen, Célestine Galli-Marié; Massenet's muse of the 1880s and 1890s, Sibyl Sanderson; and the early Wagner star Jean de Reszke - Karen Henson argues that singers in the late nineteenth century continued to be important, but in ways that were not conventionally 'vocal'. Instead they enjoyed a freedom and creativity based on their ability to express text, act and communicate physically, and exploit the era's media. By these and other means, singers played a crucial role in the creation of opera up to the end of the nineteenth century.
Reef follows the transformation of a girl of humble origins, born to a courtesan, into a fabulously talented, wealthy, and beloved icon. Sarah Bernhardt is still considered to be one of the greatest performers of all time. Boldly unconventional, extravagantly eccentric and unapologetically promiscuous, Bernhardt-- the divine Sarah-- was the global superstar of the 1800s-- and perhaps one of the greatest performers of all time. -- adapted from jacket