Popular Opera in Eighteenth-Century France
Music and Entertainment before the Revolution

A major re-orientation in understanding opera, exploring musical comedies with spoken dialogue previously excluded from historical accounts.

David Charlton (Author)

9781316515846, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 16 December 2021

350 pages
25.1 x 17.6 x 2.6 cm, 0.849 kg

'Charlton's erudite scholarship makes Popular opera an essential reference work for musicologists, performers and scholars of 18th-century theatre. Moreover, Charlton's lucid descriptions of the often complex plots in many of these works highlight various news stories and themes relevant to the cultural and political historian. This much needed volume not only fulfils Charlton's initial observation that 'Popular opera deserves a history' (p.1) but amply demonstrates that this hitherto neglected repertory is sophisticated enough to rival even the tragédie en musique.' Adrian Powney, Early Music Journal

This is the first book for a century to explore the development of French opera with spoken dialogue from its beginnings. Musical comedy in this form came in different styles and formed a distinct genre of opera, whose history has been obscured by neglect. Its songs were performed in private homes, where operas themselves were also given. The subject-matter was far wider in scope than is normally thought, with news stories and political themes finding their way onto the popular stage. In this book, David Charlton describes the comedic and musical nature of eighteenth-century popular French opera, considering topics such as Gherardi's theatre, Fair Theatre and the 'musico-dramatic art' created in the mid-eighteenth century. Performance practices, singers, audience experiences and theatre staging are included, as well as a pioneering account of the formation of a core of 'canonical' popular works.

1. Introduction
2. Music and spoken theatre
3. Music in Gherardi's company
4. Singing and acting at home
5. Opéra-comique en vaudevilles
6. Experiences of popular theatre
7. Comic and serious themes
8. Performance as history
9. Musical expansion
10. Italian inroads: the King's company
11. Six methods of synthesis
12. A 'Musico-dramatic art'
13. Conclusions.

Subject Areas: Opera [AVGC9], Classical music [c 1750 to c 1830 AVGC4], Music [AV]