Giacomo Meyerbeer and Music Drama in Nineteenth-Century Paris

Nineteenth-century Paris attracted foreign musicians like a magnet. The city boasted a range of theatres and of genres represented there, a wealth of libretti and source material for them, vocal, orchestral and choral resources, to say nothing of the set designs, scenery and costumes. All this contributed to an artistic environment that had musicians from Italian- and German-speaking states beating a path to the doors of the Acad-e Royale de Musique, Op--Comique, Th-tre Italien, Th-tre Royal de l''Od- and Th-tre de la Renaissance. This book both tracks specific aspects of this culture, and examines stage music in Paris through the lens of one of its most important figures: Giacomo Meyerbeer. The early part of the book, which is organised chronologically, examines the institutional background to music drama in Paris in the nineteenth century, and introduces two of Meyerbeer''s Italian operas that were of importance for his career in Paris. Meyerbeer''s acculturation to Parisian theatric