Question: The 1979 book by French philosopher Catherine Clément, Opera: The Undoing of Women, explores this opera in five acts that premiered at the Opéra-Comique in the early 1900 and was conducted by which conductor?
Context: Valentine de Milan ("Valentina of Milan") is an opera by the French composer Étienne Méhul with a libretto by Jean-Nicolas Bouilly.  It takes the form of a "drame lyrique" in three acts.  Méhul began work on the score in 1807, revising it in 1815, but it was left incomplete when he died in 1817.  His nephew Joseph Daussoigne-Méhul finished the opera, adding five numbers, and it premiered at the Opéra-Comique, Paris on 28 November 1822, five years after Méhul's death.  At the end of the performance, a bust of Méhul was brought on stage and crowned with flowers and laurel wreaths to the acclamation of the audience.  The opera was a success and there were frequent performances until 1825, when it disappeared from the Opéra-Comique's repertory.  Louis Spohr staged a German version in Kassel in 1824. Mârouf, savetier du Caire ("Marouf, Cobbler of Cairo") is an "opéra comique" by the French composer Henri Rabaud.  The libretto, by Lucien Nepoty, is based on a tale from the "Arabian Nights".  "Mârouf" was first performed at the Opéra-Comique, Paris, on 15 May 1914.  The premiere was a great success and "Mârouf" became Rabaud's most popular opera.  The score makes great use of oriental colour.  The United States premiere of the opera was given at the Metropolitan Opera on December 19, 1917, with Giuseppe De Luca in the title role, Frances Alda as Princess Saamcheddine, and Pierre Monteux conducting.  The opera was revived at the Opéra-Comique in 2013 in a production by Jérôme Deschamps, with Jean-Sébastien Bou in the title role, conducted by Alain Altinoglu. Pelléas et Mélisande ("Pelléas and Mélisande") is an opera in five acts with music by Claude Debussy.  The French libretto was adapted from Maurice Maeterlinck's Symbolist play "Pelléas et Mélisande".  It premiered at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 30 April 1902 with Jean Périer as Pelléas and Mary Garden as Mélisande in a performance conducted by André Messager, who was instrumental in getting the Opéra-Comique to stage the work.  The only opera Debussy ever completed, it is considered a landmark in 20th-century music. Opera: The Undoing of Women (French: "L’Opéra ou la Défaite des femmes") is a 1979 book by French philosopher Catherine Clément.  In it, Clément explores the way in which traditional operatic plots often feature the death of female characters - in her words, "the infinitely repetitive spectacle of a woman who dies, murdered."  Besides the literal deaths of characters such as Carmen, Cio-Cio-San, Isolde and Mélisande, Clément also discusses metaphorical deaths - for example, Turandot's power and the Marschallin's sexuality. Catherine Clément (] ; born 10 February 1939) is a prominent French philosopher, novelist, feminist, and literary critic.  She received a degree in philosophy from the prestigious École Normale Supérieure, and studied under such luminaries as Claude Lévi-Strauss and Jacques Lacan, working in the fields of anthropology and psychoanalysis.  A member of the school of French feminism and écriture féminine, she has published books with Hélène Cixous and Julia Kristeva. Écriture féminine translates from the French as "feminine writing," though it is often translated as "women's writing."  The theory, which unpacks the relationship between the cultural and psychological inscription of the female body and female difference in language and text, is a strain of feminist literary theory that originated in France in the early 1970s through the work of theorists including Hélène Cixous, Monique Wittig, Luce Irigaray, Chantal Chawaf, Catherine Clément, and Julia Kristeva and has subsequently been extended by writers such as psychoanalytic theorist Bracha Ettinger, who emerged in this field in the early 1990s. Notorious is an opera in five acts and 22 scenes by Hans Gefors based on a Swedish-language libretto from Kerstin Perski after Alfred Hitchcock's 1946 film "Notorious".  The opera premiered at Göteborg Opera in September 2015 with Nina Stemme in the leading role which had been played in the film by fellow Swede Ingrid Bergman.  Gefors had previously composed full-length stage works for the Swedish Royal Opera ("Christina", 1986), for Wiesbaden Opera ("Der Park", 1992), and for the centenary of the Opéra-Comique at the Salle Favart in Paris ("Clara", 1998). The Opéra-Comique is a Parisian opera company, which was founded around 1714 by some of the popular theatres of the Parisian fairs.  In 1762 the company was merged with, and for a time took the name of its chief rival the Comédie-Italienne at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, and was also called the Théâtre-Italien up to about 1793, when it again became most commonly known as the Opéra-Comique.  Today the company's official name is Théâtre national de l'Opéra-Comique, and its theatre, with a capacity of around 1,248 seats, sometimes referred to as the Salle Favart (the third on this site), is located in Place Boïeldieu, in the 2nd arrondissement of Paris, not far from the Palais Garnier, one of the theatres of the Paris Opéra.  The musicians and others associated with the Opéra-Comique have made important contributions to operatic history and tradition in France, and to French opera.  Its current mission is to reconnect with its history, and discover its unique repertoire, to ensure production and dissemination of operas for the wider public.  Mainstays of the repertory at the Opéra-Comique during its history have included the following works which have each been performed more than 1,000 times by the company: "Cavalleria Rusticana", "Le chalet", "La dame blanche", "Le domino noir", "La fille du régiment", "Lakmé", "Manon", "Mignon", "Les noces de Jeannette", "Le pré aux clercs", "Tosca", "La bohème", "Werther" and "Carmen", the last having been performed more than 2,500 times. La reine Fiammette is an opera in four acts by composer Xavier Leroux.  The opera uses a French language libretto by Catulle Mendès which is based on Mendès's 1898 work of the same name, a "conte dramatique" in six acts set in Renaissance Italy.  The opera's premiere was given by the Opéra-Comique at the Salle Favart theatre in Paris on 23 December 1903.  The production was directed by Albert Carré and conducted by André Messager.  The United States premiere of the work was given at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City on 24 January 1919.  That production was directed by Richard Ordynski, conducted by Pierre Monteux, and starred Geraldine Farrar as Orlanda, Hipolito Lazaro as Danièlo, Adamo Didur as Giorgio, Léon Rothier as César, and Flora Perini as Pantasilée.  Up to the Second World War the opera received 59 performances at the Opéra-Comique. Christopher Larkin is an American conductor who is best known for his work within the field of opera.  He was Associate Conductor of the Houston Grand Opera for a number of years where he notably conducted the world premieres of Mark Adamo's "Little Women" and Michael Daugherty’s "Jackie O".  He is also the former Music Director of the New York City Opera National Company.  As a guest conductor, Larkin has worked for numerous opera houses including Wexford Festival Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Washington National Opera, Portland Opera, Florentine Opera, Opera Pacific, Opera Carolina, and Boston Lyric Opera among many others.  He has also worked as an Assistant Conductor and vocal coach for the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Opera Company of Philadelphia, Vancouver Opera, and the Canadian Opera Company.
Answer: André Messager