Aesthetics of Opera in the Ancien Régime, 16471785 (Cambridge Studies in Opera)
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: March 24, 2003
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 420
ISBN-13: 9780521801881
Subjects: Baroque music (c 1600 to c 1750); Opera; Music; Genres & Styles - Opera; Music/Songbooks; Music and state; History & Criticism - General; Music / Opera; France; 17th century; 18th century; History
Description: "This is the first study to recognize the broad impact of opera in early-modern French culture. Downing A. Thomas considers the use of operatic spectacle and music by Louis XlV as a vehicle for absolutism, the resistance of music to the aesthetic and political agendas of the time, and the long-term development of opera in eighteenth-century humanist culture. He argues that French opera moved away from the politics of the absolute monarchy in which it originated to address Enlightenment concerns with sensibility and feeling. The book combines close readings of significant seventeenth-century and eighteenth-century operatic works, and circumstantial writings and theoretical works on theater and opera, together with a measure of reception history. Thomas examines key works by Lully, Rameau, and Charpentier, among others, and extends his reach from the late seventeenth century to the end of the eighteenth."--Jacket.