David Charlton

Ranju Roy

Support, Direction, Space

Embodying the Yoga Sutras

Nicole Wild

répertoire 1762-1972

Théâtre de l'Opéra-Comique Paris

Katharine Ellis

This collection of essays has been written by thirteen scholars, from five countries. It focuses on the musical activities of Hector Berlioz, viewed as a European phenomenon. The first part of the book discusses Berlioz's journeys to Breslau (1846), to Moscow and St Petersburg (1847 and 1867-68), and to London (especially in 1847 and 1853). In particular, the reception of Berlioz's music is placed under scrutiny. The second part of the book starts with a new history of the recitatives that Berlioz wrote for Weber's Der Freischütz, as they were used in Paris (1841, 1850), Berlin (1849), London (1850) and Milan (1872). Five essays then discuss different kinds of influence wrought by European literature on Berlioz, including Shakespeare's Othello and Goethe's Faust. The book's final section (source materials) contains the first complete anthology of London press reviews of Benvenuto Cellini in 1853; and new translations of three Russian articles on Berlioz by Vladimir Odoyevsky, from 1841 and 1847.

Berlioz in Europe

The Musical Voyager

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

Music and Entertainment before the Revolution

Popular Opera in Eighteenth-Century France

Bringing together well-known writers with composers and performers, this volume gives a complete overview of Holt's creative work up to 2015.

The Music of Simon Holt

Historians of French politics, art, philosophy and literature have long known the tensions and fascinations of Louis XV's reign, the 1750s in particular. David Charlton's study comprehensively re-examines this period, from Rameau to Gluck and elucidates the long-term issues surrounding opera. Taking Rousseau's Le Devin du Village as one narrative centrepiece, Charlton investigates this opera's origins and influences in the 1740s and goes on to use past and present research to create a new structural model that explains the elements of reform in Gluck's tragédies for Paris. Charlton's book opens many new perspectives on the musical practices and politics of the period, including the Querelle des Bouffons. It gives the first detailed account of intermezzi and opere buffe performed by Eustachio Bambini's troupe at the Paris Opéra from August 1752 to February 1754 and discusses Rameau's comedies Platée and Les Paladins and their origins.

Music, Confrontation, Realism

Opera in the Age of Rousseau

First published in 1986, this major study in English explores Grétry and opéra-comique between 1768 and 1791.

Grétry and the Growth of Opéra-comique

A wide-ranging account of opera on stage and in society in the age of Rousseau, from Rameau to Gluck.

Jonathan Cross

The Cambridge Companion to Grand Opera

Mark Ledbury

Originally published in 2000, this book highlights the interst Sedaine's life and work is now, belatedly, provoking in many scholarly disciplines. If Sedaine speaks today to literary history, theatre history and opera studies, it is because he possessed a multivalent vision, one which accounts for both his past neglect and is present rediscovery. Like many others, he believed that the established, 'official' genres needed to be reformed; unlike many, he made it his business to transform the actual language and operation of the theatre arts he practised. Until late eighteenth-century opera and drama in France become better understood, Sedaine's immense importance for the development of Romantic opera and theatre risks remaining generally concealed; to reveal something of this importance is one main reason for publishing the present volume. This book includes chapters on Sedaine and the question of genre, the representation of the female in the dramas of Sedaine, and the words, gestures and other signs in the era of Sedaine.

David Charlton

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