{"product_id":"the-comedians-of-the-king-9780226743257","title":"The Comedians of the King","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eThe Comedians of the King\u003c\/i\u003e has the potential to be recognized as a central work on eighteenth-century musical culture. Doe approaches the subject through a mingling of social and political perspectives, keying into the major questions that have arisen about the last decades of the Old Regime in France. This book offers an intriguing discussion about how we might interpret the evolution of public life by looking at it in interdisciplinary perspective.” -- William Weber, California State University, Long Beach\u003cbr\u003e“The richness of the book’s vision is remarkable: its elegant syntheses offer a multiple picture of a key operatic genre from its modern formation to mature survival in the age of Wagner. Musical theater studies have needed something like this for a generation now, and Doe has written a persuasive and pleasurable account of the underlying tensions between a ‘national genre’ and the ebb and flow of national politics.” -- David Charlton, Royal Holloway, University of London\u003cbr\u003e“Skillfully combining detailed study of a wide range of works with institutional history and royal patronage, \u003ci\u003eThe Comedians of the King\u003c\/i\u003e will transform our understanding of a key chapter in the history of lyric theater. A noteworthy feature of Doe’s work is her ability to weave the political dimension of her narrative with institutional and stylistic developments in \u003ci\u003eopéra comique\u003c\/i\u003e. Meticulously researched and persuasively argued, this major study is essential reading.” -- Mark Darlow, University of Cambridge\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eThe Comedians of the King\u003c\/i\u003e provides a fascinating and nuanced account of the process by which the \u003ci\u003eopéra comique\u003c\/i\u003e, with its humble origins in the Parisian fairgrounds, became the cosmopolitan emblem of \u003ci\u003el’Europe française\u003c\/i\u003e and an important vehicle for courtly propaganda. Clearly and compellingly, Doe tells the story of the \u003ci\u003eopéra comique\u003c\/i\u003e alongside the story of a queen, Marie Antoinette, whose tastes and efforts lay behind its transformation. The result is a book that amplifies our understanding of not only the genre but also the social ambivalences and contradictions it reflected on the eve of the French Revolution.” -- Georgia Cowart, Case Western Reserve University\u003cbr\u003e\"One of the most valuable contributions of \u003ci\u003eThe Comedians of the King\u003c\/i\u003e is to have integrated a deep dive into the business side of \u003ci\u003eopéra-comique\u003c\/i\u003e and the administrative machinery of culture, which made it possible for the genre to flourish, with an exploration of the artistic innovations and successes that it accomplished during the final decades of the eighteenth century. As a result of this capacious approach, Julia Doe captures in exemplary fashion the full complexity and paradoxes of the genre’s expansion in late eighteenth-century France. . . . \u003ci\u003eThe Comedians of the King\u003c\/i\u003e will have a lasting impact on the study of eighteenth-century French musical culture and on scholars who, following Doe, hope to ground their work in a robust interdisciplinary methodology.\" * Journal of the American Musicological Society *\u003cbr\u003e\"Groundbreaking. . . . Doe’s book presents a new historical account that explains how an originally operatic genre of secondary rank thrived and then outlived a major phase of the Bourbon monarchy. The \u003ci\u003eComedians of the King\u003c\/i\u003e presents a freshly conceived continuity of operatic genre through major historic changes.\" * Music and Letters *\u003cbr\u003e\"The overarching aim of Doe’s revised story of the opéra-comique is to offer, in her words, a framework that can better ‘match the nuance of the theatrical world it confronts.' Specifically, she hopes ‘to temper the assumed polarities of opera comique and tragédie lyrique; to deepen our understanding of these genre’s political functions; and to better capture the musical complexity, diversity, and contradictions of a society in the process of radical change.' I think the book she has created does achieve these goals, and I know my understanding of the opéra-comique, its social world and its political entanglements is much richer for it.\" * Eighteenth Century Music *\u003cbr\u003e\"Doe demonstrates how librettists and composers came to test the limits of this genre by turning it into an alternative to Tragédie lyrique for the elite, while explaining how opéra-comique was exploited in the construction of the cultivated public image of the monarchy. This contribution is all the more important as it offers a nuanced picture of the aesthetic and musical evolutions of a complex genre that contributed to the construction of a \u003ci\u003egenre éminemment national \u003c\/i\u003ein the nineteenth century.\" -- Maxime Margollé * H-France Review *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEditorial Principles\u003cbr\u003e   Introduction Institutional History\u003cbr\u003e Dialogue Opera and the Cosmopolitan “Revolution”\u003cbr\u003e The Politics of Genre\u003cbr\u003e 1. \u003ci\u003eOpéra Comique\u003c\/i\u003e and the Legacy of Colbert Comic Theater and the \u003ci\u003eQuerelle des Bouffons\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Theater and the Nation\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eLa Nouvelle Troupe\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e New Rivalries\u003cbr\u003e 2. Character, Class, and Style in the Lyric \u003ci\u003eDrame\u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003eBienséance\u003c\/i\u003e in \u003ci\u003eAncien Régime\u003c\/i\u003e Opera\u003cbr\u003e Opéra Comique and the \u003ci\u003eDrame\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Romance and Refinement \u003cbr\u003e Recitative for the \u003ci\u003ePeuple\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Lyric \u003ci\u003eDrame\u003c\/i\u003e at the Opéra\u003cbr\u003e 3. The Musical Revolutions of Marie Antoinette The Musical Patronage of a Habsburg Queen\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eTragédie Lyrique\u003c\/i\u003e and Its Parodies\/\/\u003cbr\u003e Italian Opera at the French Court\u003cbr\u003e Despotism and \u003ci\u003ePrivilège\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 4. The Decadence of the Pastoral Pastoral Living at the Petit Trianon\u003cbr\u003e “Private” Pastorals: The \u003ci\u003eTroupe des Seigneurs\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Ceremonial Pastorals for Court and Capital\u003cbr\u003e The Pastoral as Adaptation: C. S. Favart’s \u003ci\u003eNinette à la cour\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 5. “Heroic” Comedy on the Eve of 1789 Opera and Revolution at the Salle Favart\u003cbr\u003e The Development of “Heroic” Comedy\u003cbr\u003e The “Heroic” \u003ci\u003eSargines\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Continuity and Rupture\u003cbr\u003e 6. Epilogue: The Foundation of a “People’s” Art \u003ci\u003eRichard Coeur de Lion\u003c\/i\u003e: The First Fifty Years\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eRichard Coeur de Lion\u003c\/i\u003e: The First Hundred Years\u003cbr\u003e Conclusions: \u003ci\u003eRichard Coeur de Lion\u003c\/i\u003e and the Revolutionary Centennial \u003cbr\u003e  Acknowledgments\u003cbr\u003e Notes\u003cbr\u003e Bibliography\u003cbr\u003e Index","brand":"The University of Chicago Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48864240206167,"sku":"9780226743257","price":45.6,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780226743257.jpg?v=1722271025","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/the-comedians-of-the-king-9780226743257","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}