The Miraculous in French Baroque Opera

Colloque organisé les 20 et 21 mars 2009 à l’Opéra Comique (Paris) par l’Opéra Comique et le Palazzetto Bru Zane.

Whatever the period and genre, whether it used surprise or complicity, French opera continually endeavoured to come up with the formula most likely to delight audiences. From the start, the use of the supernatural was essential in both the Baroque miraculous and Romantic fantasy when it came to staging the type of performances popular with sophisticated society, as well as in subtly conveying different aspects of the modern life of the soul, its innermost twists and turns and its tireless quest for hidden meaning. This conference examined the representation of the supernatural in opera over a long period: its influences, its significance, its methods of production and the way it was used in the work of leading 19th-century composers, particularly Gounod, Offenbach, Massenet, Charpentier and—of course—Berlioz, for whom “the Romantic and the fantastic were one and the same.” 

Direction : Alexandre Dratwicki et Agnès Terrier.

See also the symposium The Fantastic in French Romantic Opera

Publication liée
Le surnaturel sur la scène lyrique : du merveilleux baroque au fantastique romantique, sous la direction d’Agnès Terrier et d’Alexandre Dratwicki, Lyon : Symétrie/Palazzetto Bru Zane, 2012.