Naturalism and Massenet's Thérèse

As often with the terminology that is used to classify various aesthetic movements, the term ‘naturalism’ has different meanings within the arts, while those arts that apply the term nevertheless share a common ideal. That is not true of Neoclassicism, for instance, in which the ideal of the painter Jacques-Louis David diverges from that of the composer Francis Poulenc, or of Classicism, in which the poet and playwright Philippe Quinault has little in common with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Although the naturalistic theory is on the whole based on ethical foundations that give higher moral value to those precepts which follow the rules of nature, it is expressed in different ways in different arts. Taking inspiration from the experimental sciences, naturalism in literature traces a rigorously and precisely studied reality. Naturalism in fine art gives primacy to a true-to-life style, a depiction of nature avoiding distortion or interpretation. In opera (and in plays), naturalism implies natural expression by realistic characters; the artificiality of spouting poetry in that context is rejected, as is the convention of lending the work structure by means of arias, duos, trios, scenes, tableaux and so on.