| Building the Operatic Museum: Eighteenth-Century Opera in Fin-de-Siècle Paris Subjects: Opera -- France -- Paris -- 19th century; Opera -- 18th century; Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus 1756–1791 -- Criticism and interpretation; Gluck Christoph Willibald Ritter von 1714–1787 -- Criticism and interpretation; Rameau Jean-Philippe 1683–1764 -- Cr; The pathbreaking revival in Paris ca. 1900 of long-neglected operas by Mozart, Gluck, and Rameau -- and what this meant to French audiences, critics, and composers. Focusing on the operas of Mozart, Gluck, and Rameau, Building the Operatic Museum examines the role that eighteenth-century works played in the opera houses of Paris around the turn of the twentieth century. These works, mostly neglected during the nineteenth century, became the main exhibits in what William Gibbons calls the Operatic Museum -- a physical and conceptual space in which great masterworks from the past and present could, like works ofvisual art in the Louvre, entertain audiences while educating them in their own history and national identity. Drawing on the fields of musicology, museum studies, art history, and literature, Gibbons explores how this "museum" transformed Parisian musical theater into a place of cultural memory, dedicated to the display of French musical greatness. William Gibbons is Associate Professor of Musicology at Texas Christian University. |