Overview

The etymology of libretto, traced from the Italian libretti, portends its trans- formation as text during the Enlightenment, defining and differentiating Italian from French cultural ideals. Culminating in a reformulation of opera, numerous debates by the philosophes over the nature of the libretto, com- prising the feasibility of French as a language for opera and the possibility of a unified text comprised of word and tone, cause the emergence of the restyled libretto as Enlightenment text. Reflecting Enlightenment concerns with nature and the role played by music as a language of anthropological origin, elucidated in theoretical works by Diderot, Rousseau, d'Alembert, and others, these debates were concurrent with important musicological developments such as the rise of the modern symphony, and the genesis of the sonata form. As a result, they engendered a musical critique resulting in new theories for then-common musical terms such as recitative, expression, while proposing a theory of musical mimesis. During the period surrounding the Revolution, the readership of restyled libretti, aided by the proliferation of pamphlet literature, reified through opera a new readership and cultural consciousness.

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9781495503009

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Indeed, scholars today may well know more about the circumstances surrounding an opera's creation than did many of the people involved with the original work. Yet it remains a challenge - one this book goes a long way toward meeting to experience an opera as it would have been experienced by its earliest audiences, not only aurally and visually but also within the context of social and political life. - Alfred E. Lemmon. Musicologist and Head of Research, Williams Research Center of the Historic New Orleans Collection.

Author Information

"Dr. Pamela Gay-White is Associate Professor of French at Alabama State University. She completed her Ph.D. at Louisiana State University and has authored numerous articles on the intersection of opera and literature during the late-Enlightenment. Currently she teaches interdisciplinary courses on the musical works of Rousseau and on the history and aftermath of the Haitian Revolution. She is author of Bejart and Modernism: Case Studies in the Archetype of Dance (2006) and has published and lectured on the performing arts in Europe and The United States."""

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