Opera and the Political Imaginary in Old Regime France

Olivia Bloechl

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Language: English

Published by The University of Chicago Press, US, 2018

022652275X / 9780226522753

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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 tragedie 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, ancienregime absolutism. Through this lens, French opera of the period emerges as a deeply conservative, yet also more politically nuanced, genre than previously thought.…

Seller Inventory # LU-9780226522753

Title
Opera and the Political Imaginary in Old Regime France
Author
Olivia Bloechl
Publisher
The University of Chicago Press, US
Publication year
2018
Condition
New
Binding
Hardback
Language
English
ISBN 10
022652275X
ISBN 13
9780226522753
Item weight
539 grams

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