Staging the French Revolution: Cultural Politics and the Paris Opera, 1789-1794

436 Pages·2012·4.423 MB·English

by  Mark Darlow

Staging the French Revolution
series editor Jane F. Fulcher,
series board Celia Applegate
Philip Bohlman
Kate Van Orden
Michael P. Steinberg
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Staging the French Revolution:
Cultural Politics and the Paris Opéra, 1789–1794
Mark Darlow
The Sense of Sound:
Musical Meaning in France, 1260–1330
Emma Dillon
Staging the
French
Revolution
Cultural Politics mark darlow
and the Paris
Opéra,
1789–1794
1
1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Darlow, Mark.
Staging the French Revolution : cultural politics and the Paris Opera, 1789–1794 / Mark Darlow.
p. cm. — (The new cultural history of music series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-977372-5 (alk. paper)
1. Opera—France—Paris—18th century. 2. Opera de Paris—History—18th century. 3. Opera—
Political aspects—France—Paris—History—18th century. 4. Opera—Production and direction—
France—Paris—History—18th century. I. Title.
ML1727.3.D372012
792.50944’36109033—dc23 2011018802
_____________________________________________________________________________
987654321
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
contents
Acknowledgments vii
Sigla and Abbreviations ix
Note on Abbreviations xi
About the Companion Website xiii
Introduction 3
1. The Outlook in 1789 21
2. From Crown to Town: Governance of the Opéra,
March 1789–April 1790 63
3. Control by the Municipality:
April 1790–April 1792 99
4. The Opéra during the Terror 141
5 . Finances and Repertory 183
6. Tragedy and Serious Works 213
7. Comic and Mixed Works 277
8. Republican Repertory (1792–1794) 325
Conclusion 383
Bibliography 395
Index 415
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acknowledgments
I have acquired many debts in the writing of this book, a project begun back
in 2004. For their assistance and advice in locating particular primary sources,
I would like to thank Francis Delon (Archives de Paris), Marie-Claire Waille
(Bibliothèque Municipale de Besançon), and Pierre Jugie (Archives Nationales).
I owe particular thanks to the staff of the Bibliothèque de l’Opéra who under
sometimes diffi cult circumstances were unfailingly helpful and supportive of
this project: Pierre Vidal, Matthias Auclair, and their colleagues, all of whom
have helped me navigate and make use of the exceptionally rich holdings of
the Opéra.
I gratefully acknowledge permission to reproduce particular images granted
by the Bibliothèque Municipale de Besançon, the Archives Nationales de
France, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the Syndics of Cambridge
University Library, and the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris.
For pointing me to specifi c sources and for discussing issues and ideas
that found their way into this book, I would like to thank David Charlton,
Christian Donath, John Golder, Yann Robert, and Solveig Serre. Particular
thanks are due to my mother, Janet Darlow, who spent large amounts of time
creating the spreadsheet on which the evidence for Chapter 5 is based, for
creating tables and graphs, and for spotting and correcting several factual
blunders in my data. Research assistance in the early stages was also provided
by Julia McLaren and her colleagues at Cpéderf in Paris, and my own primary
research was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council matching
leave scheme and a Philip Leverhulme prize, awarded in 2005, and generously
supplemented by the University of Cambridge. I am grateful to my colleagues
in the Department of French at Cambridge and at Christ’s college for their
support, and particularly to Emma Wilson, Nicholas Hammond and Bill
Burgwinkle.
For reading late drafts of the book, I would particularly like to thank
Thomas Wynn, Sarah Hibberd, Katherine Astbury, the anonymous reviewer
for Oxford University Press, and most important Matthew Rice, whose
support during the completion of this project has meant so much.
viii | acknowledgments
sigla and abbreviations
AP: Archives parlementaires de 1787 à 1860, recueil complet
des débats législatifs et politiques des Chambres françaises,
imprimé . . . sous la direction de J. Mamidal et E. Laurent
. . . 1re série (1787 à 1799) , 47 vols. (Paris: P. Dupont,
1867–1896). Cited by volume and page number.
AP , lx.73 [volume 60, page 73]
[ AN]: A rchives Nationales de France. At the time of
writing, documents in the O/1 series are numbered,
and I cite them by box and document number, hence
O/1/617 #47. AJ/13 documents remain unnum-
bered, but classifi ed within different numbered
dossiers, and I cite them as follows: AJ/13/3.II.
Ars: Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, Paris
BCF: Bibliothèque de la Comédie-Française, Paris
BHVP: Bibliothèque historique de la ville de Paris
BMB: Bibliothèque municipale, Besançon
BN-Est: Cabinet des Estampes, Bibliothèque nationale de
France
BnF: Bibliothèque nationale de France
B NM: D épartement de la musique, Bibliothèque nationale
de France
CER: Conseil d’Etat du Roi
CIP [In the text]: Comité d’instruction publique
[In footnotes]: P rocès-verbaux du Comité d’instruction publique de
l’Assemblée législative, publiés et annotés par M. J.
Guillaume (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1889), and