Aesthetics of Opera in the Ancien Régime, 1647-1785

This is the first study to recognize the wider picture of opera within early-modern French culture. Downing Thomas considers the place of music within a cultural environment--the employment of music by Louis XIV as a symbol of absolutism; the use of music as a statement against the monarchy; and the long-term development of opera as a reflection of humanism. Thomas examines key works by Lully, Rameau, and Charpentier, among others, and extends his reach from the late seventeenth century to the end of the eighteenth.

Author: Downing A. Thomas
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 02/01/2009
Pages: 420
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.35lbs
Size: 9.02h x 5.98w x 0.93d
ISBN: 9780521100977

About the Author
Thomas, Downing A.: - Downing A. Thomas is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of French and Italian at the University of Iowa. He is the author of Music and the Origins of Language: Theories from the French Enlightenment (Cambridge University Press, 1995), and co-editor of Empire and Occupation in France and the Francophone Worlds, a special issue of Studies in Twentieth-Century Literature (1999). He has also published numerous articles.

This title is not returnable