Description
Book SynopsisThe 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 ComÃdie humaine to Proust's à la recherche du temps perdu, by way of (among others) Dumas pÃre's Le Comte de Monte-Cristo and Leroux's Le FantÃme de l'OpÃra. 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.
Trade Review'With an obvious and informed enthusiasm for the subject, Newark balances literary and musicological considerations with quite and persuasive authority … casts revealing light on a significant period in the development of opera.' Opera
Table of ContentsIntroduction; 1. Balzac, Meyerbeer and science; 2. 'Tout entier?': scenes from grand opéra 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 Opéra; 6. Proust and the soirée à l'Opéra chez soi; Envoi; Bibliography.
