Opera and the Political Imaginary in Old Regime France / Olivia Bloechl.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bloechl, Olivia Ashley, author.

Series:

Chicago scholarship online.

Chicago scholarship online

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Opera--France--18th century.

Opera.

Opera--France--17th century.

Opera--France--Political aspects--History--18th century.

Opera--France--Political aspects--History--17th century.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (301 pages) : illustrations, music.

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, [2018]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

From its origins in the 1670s through the French Revolution, serious opera in France was associated with the power of the absolute monarchy, and its ties to the crown remain at the heart of our understanding of this opera tradition (especially its foremost genre, the tragédie en musique). In Opera and the Political Imaginary in Old Regime France, however, Olivia Bloechl reveals another layer of French opera's political theater. The make-believe worlds on stage, she shows, involved not just fantasies of sovereign rule but also aspects of government. Plot conflicts over public conduct, morality, security, and law thus appear side-by-side with tableaus hailing glorious majesty. What's more, opera's creators dispersed sovereign-like dignity and powers well beyond the genre's larger-than-life rulers and gods, to its lovers, magicians, and artists. This speaks to the genre's distinctive combination of a theological political vocabulary with a concern for mundane human capacities, which is explored here for the first time. By looking at the political relations among opera characters and choruses in recurring scenes of mourning, confession, punishment, and pardoning, we can glimpse a collective political experience underlying, and sometimes working against, ancienrégime absolutism. Through this lens, French opera of the period emerges as a deeply conservative, yet also more politically nuanced, genre than previously thought.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Editorial Principles

Preface

Introduction. Sovereignty and Government in the Tragédie en musique

Chapter One. The Politics of Glory: Angelic Citizenship and the Contemplative Chorus

Chapter Two. Choral Lament and the Mourning Public

Chapter Three. True Confessions: Opera's Theater of Guilt and Remorse

Chapter Four. The Tormenting Orchestra

Chapter Five. Spectral Kingdoms: Poetics and Politics of Les Enfers

Chapter Six. Pluto, the Underworld King

Conclusion: A Theater of Precarity

Appendix. Operas and Ballets Cited

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Previously issued in print: 2018.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 22. Okt 2019)

Other Format:

Print version :

ISBN:

9780226522890

022652289X

OCLC:

1028211122