Opera in the novel from Balzac to Proust
By: Cormac Newark
Series: Cambridge studies in opera; Cambridge studies in opera
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Cambridge; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 287
ISBN-13: 9780521118903
Subjects: History and criticism; Opera in literature; French fiction
Description: "The turning point of Madame Bovary, which Flaubert memorably set at the opera, is only the most famous example of a surprisingly long tradition, one common to a range of French literary styles and sub-genres. In the first book-length study of that tradition to appear in English, Cormac Newark examines representations of operatic performance from Balzac's La Come;die humaine to Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu, by way of (among others) Dumas père's Le Comte de Monte-Cristo and Leroux's Le Fantôme de l'Ope;ra. Attentive to textual and musical detail alike in the works, the study also delves deep into their reception contexts. The result is a compelling cultural-historical account: of changing ways of making sense of operatic experience from the 1820s to the 1920s, and of a perennial writerly fascination with the recording of that experience"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Machine generated contents note: Introduction; 1. Balzac, Meyerbeer and science; 2. 'Tout entier?': scenes from grand ope;ra in Dumas and Balzac; 3. The novel in opera: residues of reading in Flaubert; 4. Knowing what happens next: opera in Verne; 5. 'Vous qui faites l'endormie': the Phantom and the buried voices of the Paris Ope;ra; 6. Proust and the soire;e ... l'Ope;ra chez soi; Envoi; Bibliography.