TY - CHAP
T1 - The 'romance' and its cognates
T2 - Narrative, irony and 'vraisemblance' in early opéra-comique
AU - Charlton, David
N1 - This essay was reprinted in my 'French Opera 1730-1830' (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000).
PY - 1997
Y1 - 1997
N2 - Offers an analytical survey of the musical Romance in France, starting with a stylistic seach for musical points of definition in the pre-operatic field, stretching back to the 1730s. Gradually, two main types emerged: the 'archaic' minor-mode Romance in triple metre, associated with narrative strophic texts; and the 'ode' type in major mode, duple metre, sometimes given answering configurations of major and minor modes. The following section takes forward the pioneering work of Daniel Heartz in 'The Beginnings of the Operatic Romance' (Eighteenth-Century Studies, 1981-2). Close analysis shows the popularity of Rousseau's quasi-archaic Romance, 'Dans ma cabane obscure', put to narrative uses in early opéras-comiques, but also a rapid broadening of the stylistic and dramaturgical elements allotted to Romances, not infrequently linked with special lighting effects. Favart's 'Annette et Lubin' is marked out for attention, a key moment in the establishment of operatic Romances as setting out a 'tale within a tale', a mise-en-abyme of the principal plot. Lastly there was seeming plurality in strophic forms' from 1763 on: opéras-comiques abandoned the strict adherence formerly given to dramatic 'vraisemblance', wherein any strophic Romance had been heard as pre-composed within the fiction. Texts might refer to a character's personal history, and composers might use the style for situations that were simply comoedic and dramaturgically illogical, even employing differential orchestration for successive strophes.
AB - Offers an analytical survey of the musical Romance in France, starting with a stylistic seach for musical points of definition in the pre-operatic field, stretching back to the 1730s. Gradually, two main types emerged: the 'archaic' minor-mode Romance in triple metre, associated with narrative strophic texts; and the 'ode' type in major mode, duple metre, sometimes given answering configurations of major and minor modes. The following section takes forward the pioneering work of Daniel Heartz in 'The Beginnings of the Operatic Romance' (Eighteenth-Century Studies, 1981-2). Close analysis shows the popularity of Rousseau's quasi-archaic Romance, 'Dans ma cabane obscure', put to narrative uses in early opéras-comiques, but also a rapid broadening of the stylistic and dramaturgical elements allotted to Romances, not infrequently linked with special lighting effects. Favart's 'Annette et Lubin' is marked out for attention, a key moment in the establishment of operatic Romances as setting out a 'tale within a tale', a mise-en-abyme of the principal plot. Lastly there was seeming plurality in strophic forms' from 1763 on: opéras-comiques abandoned the strict adherence formerly given to dramatic 'vraisemblance', wherein any strophic Romance had been heard as pre-composed within the fiction. Texts might refer to a character's personal history, and composers might use the style for situations that were simply comoedic and dramaturgically illogical, even employing differential orchestration for successive strophes.
KW - Opera, narrative, Romance, Paris, Rousseau, dramaturgy, Monsigny, Philidor, Gaviniès, Duni
M3 - Chapter
SN - 348710250
T3 - Musikwissenschaftliche Publikationen
SP - 43
EP - 92
BT - Die Opéra Comique und ihr Einfluss auf das europäische Musiktheater im 19. Jahrhundert
A2 - Schneider, Herbert
A2 - Wild, Nicole
PB - Georg Olms Verlag
CY - Hildesheim etc.
ER -