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Book Synopsis

For decades, eighteenth-century Paris had been declining into a baroque backwater. Spectacles at the opera, once considered fit for a king, had become hell for the ears, wrote playwright Carlos Goldoni. Then, in 1774, with the crowning of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, Paris became one of the world''s most vibrant musical centers.

Austrian composer Christophe-Willibald Gluck, protege of the queen, introduced a new kind of tragic opera--dramatic, human and closer to nature. The expressive pantomime known as ballet d''action, forerunner of the modern ballet, replaced stately court dancing. Along the boulevards, people whistled lighter tunes from the Italian opera, where the queen''s favorite composer, Andre Modeste Gretry, ruled supreme.

This book recounts Gluck''s remaking of the grand operatic tragedy--long symbolic of absolute monarchy--and the vehement quarrels between those who embraced reform and those who preferred familiar baroque tunes or the

The Musical World of MarieAntoinette

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    A Paperback by Barrington James

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      Publisher: McFarland & Co Inc
      Publication Date: Publication Date: 1/14/2021 12:07:00 AM
      ISBN13: 9781476684369, 978-1476684369
      ISBN10: 1476684367

      Description

      Book Synopsis

      For decades, eighteenth-century Paris had been declining into a baroque backwater. Spectacles at the opera, once considered fit for a king, had become hell for the ears, wrote playwright Carlos Goldoni. Then, in 1774, with the crowning of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, Paris became one of the world''s most vibrant musical centers.

      Austrian composer Christophe-Willibald Gluck, protege of the queen, introduced a new kind of tragic opera--dramatic, human and closer to nature. The expressive pantomime known as ballet d''action, forerunner of the modern ballet, replaced stately court dancing. Along the boulevards, people whistled lighter tunes from the Italian opera, where the queen''s favorite composer, Andre Modeste Gretry, ruled supreme.

      This book recounts Gluck''s remaking of the grand operatic tragedy--long symbolic of absolute monarchy--and the vehement quarrels between those who embraced reform and those who preferred familiar baroque tunes or the

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