Music drama at the Paris Odéon, 1824-1828 / Mark Everist.
| Author/creator |
Everist, Mark |
| Format | Book and Print |
| Publication Info | Berkeley : University of California Press, ©2002. |
| Description | xvii, 331 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm |
| Subject(s) |
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| Contents | Part I: The institution. Un delassement honnete et instructif: Music drama in Restoration Paris. The city ; The Maison du Roi ; Music drama in Paris -- L'obligation de jouer le repertoire du premier ordre: Repertory and management at the Odeon. Regulating the Odeon ; Claude Bernard ; Frederic du Petit-Mere ; Thomas Sauvage -- Cet ensemble si harmonieux et si parfait: The Odeon's personnel. Soloists ; The orchestra ; Composers ; Literary collaborators ; Patterns of dispersal -- La ferule severe et souvent capricieuse: Control and consumption. The Jury de Lecture ; Censorship ; The audience ; Les chevaliers de lustre ; Benefit performances ; Publishers -- Part II: The repertory. Une heure a l'opera-comique: occasional works. Opening the theatre: Les trois genres ; The monarchy and the theater ; The monarch's name day ; Crowning Charles X ; Command performances -- Rendre service a notre scene lyrique: The pasticcio. The pasticcio in Paris ; The 1826 plan ; Single-composer pasticci ; Castil-blaze -- Le fruit defendu: Opera Comique and the French tradition. The ancien repertoire ; Opera comique ; Berlioz ; French origins of Odeon compositions -- Les heureux etrangers: Italian music drama. Rossini ; Meyerbeer ; Mozart -- Une lecon de morale: German music drama. Weber ; Beethoven ; Viennese musicians and the Karntnertortheater. |
| Abstract | During the nineteenth century, French culture was highly regimented. Traditionally home to spoken drama, the Theatre-Royal de l'Odeon began to produce operas after receiving a license from the French government. To protect the three other opera houses from competition--the Academie royale de musique, the Theatre italien, and the Theatre-Royal de l'Opera-Comique--the government restricted Odeon productions to opera comique that had fallen into the public domain and, most important, translations of German and Italian works. But rather than decreasing the Odeon's popularity, the exclusion of new French works from its repertoire encouraged to Odeon to showcase a great range of European musical theater and contributed to its success. Because lyric repertory at the Odeon was produced alongside the theater's traditional stock of comedy and tragedy, audiences could hear three works in each of three different genres during the same evening. This book reconstructs the political power structures that controlled the world of Parisian music drama, the internal administration of the theater, and its relationship with composers and librettists, as well as with the city of Paris itself. The author's rich depiction of French cultural life and the artistic contexts that allowed the Odeon to flourish highlights the benefit of close and innovative examination of society's institutions. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references (pages 303-316) and index. |
| LCCN | 2002018842 |
| ISBN | 0520234456 (alk. paper) |
Available Items
| Library | Location | Call Number | Status | Item Actions | |
| Music | Music Stacks | ML1727.8.P2 E93 2002 | ✔ Available | Place Hold |