Opera in the Novel from Balzac to Proust

The turning point of Madame Bovary, which Flaubert memorably set at the opera, is only the most famous example of a surprisingly long tradition, one common to a range of French literary styles and sub-genres. In the first book-length study of that tradition to appear in English, Cormac Newark examines representations of operatic performance from Balzac's La Com die humaine to Proust's la recherche du temps perdu, by way of (among others) Dumas p re's Le Comte de Monte-Cristo and Leroux's Le Fant me de l'Op ra. Attentive to textual and musical detail alike in the works, the study also delves deep into their reception contexts. The result is a compelling cultural-historical account: of changing ways of making sense of operatic experience from the 1820s to the 1920s, and of a perennial writerly fascination with the recording of that experience.

Author: Cormac Newark
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 05/01/2011
Pages: 298
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.35lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.80d
ISBN: 9780521118903

About the Author
Newark, Cormac: - Cormac Newark has published widely on nineteenth-century French and Italian opera: his work has appeared in 19th-Century Music, the Cambridge Opera Journal and the Journal of the Royal Musical Association, and in various collections of essays. He has also written for Opera magazine and the Guardian. He currently teaches at the University of Ulster.