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This book seeks to recontextualize the quarrel, embedding it in the
cultural politics of the 1770s, and thereby to offer a richer
account of the disputes which would account for some of the wider
issues at stake.
Eighteenth-century French cultural life was often characterised by
quarrels, and the arrival of Viennese composer Christoph Wilibald
Gluck in Paris in 1774 was no exception, sparking a five-year
pamphlet and press controversy which featured a rival Neapolitan
composer, Niccolo Piccinni. However, as this study shows, the
Glick-Piccinni controversy was about far more than which composer
was better suited to lead French operatic reform.
This study offers a reassessment of the librettist, parodist and
critic Nicolas-Etienne Framery (1745-1810) whom scholars have
frequently mentioned in passing, but whose career remains little
known and poorly understood today. Though Framery was also active
as a translator of Italian epic works and an occasional author of
narrative, this study considers his work as a dramatist and
theatrical critic, and demonstrates his constant concern for
progress in French lyric theatre. Framery was one of the generation
of librettists to write for the new Comedie-Italienne after 1762,
and his enthusiasm for the innovative opera-comique was unfailing.
His attention to musical terminology made him one of the major
contributors, alongside Momigny and Ginguene, to the Encyclopedie
methodique: musique. Unlike better-known theorists of music such as
Rousseau, Framery adopted a progressive stance towards musical
theatre and took an active part, in the 1770s, in the introduction
of Italian lyric forms into the French theatre world. Parodies of
Sacchini and Paisiello are considered here, as are Framery's
theoretical views on composition, on the relationship between music
and language, and on operatic word setting. His progressivism
extended to journalism (he was the editor of the first periodical
on music in France, the Journal de musique, and a columnist for the
Mercure de France) and to administrative issues (he acted as agent
for the Bureau established to protect authors' rights during the
Revolution). Framery's writings for the Journal, for the
Encyclopedie methodique, and for the Institut de France show him to
be a pioneering thinker on music who preferred the concept of
expression to classical theories of music as imitation. Framery's
approach led him to adopt a career at variance with tradition and
it is only now, in the light of recent research on the
opera-comique, that his innovations in the lyric theatre can be
properly appreciated.
These studies reveal the complex contemporary interlinking of many
areas of politics (the government of others) and morality (the
government of the self). The result of this complex and deep
intertwining is that many of the problems facing social and
governmental institutions cannot be solved without also addressing
basic moral issues as well. For example, Christian morality, as
laid out in the Rule of St. Benedict and Pastoral Care by Gregory
the Great, emphasizes man's sinful nature through a focus on the
Fall and the crucifixion. These texts conclude that, as a result of
man's indelibly sinful and limited nature, man requires guidance by
God or one of his lieutenants (priests, bishops, saints, etc.) in
order to properly carry out a moral life. The effect of this
insight on moral life is that self-governance becomes focused on
obedience and submission to moral superiors as central values. In
the dissertation, I draw on Foucault to show that many of the basic
social institutions of the West inherit this understanding that
people are generally incapable of their own self-governance without
expert guidance.
Janvier 1793: Alors que se dechaine le conflit entre les radicaux
et les moderes, une piece de theatre fait scandale, provoquant une
vive querelle qui divise les plus hautes instances du gouvernement,
l'armee nationale et des dizaines de milliers de Parisiens, et qui
prend vite une telle importance qu'elle interrompt le proces de
Louis XVI, entraine un retablissement de la censure dramatique, et
motive, neuf mois plus tard, la fermeture de la Comedie-Francaise
et l'emprisonnement de sa troupe Cette piece, c'est "l'Ami des
lois" de Jean-Louis Laya. A elle seule, elle souleve de nombreuses
questions parmi les plus debattues pendant la periode
revolutionnaire, dont notamment la necessite et les limites d'une
politique culturelle etatiste, la legitimite de la censure, la
forme que devrait adopter la justice, et la fonction du theatre
dans un pays libre (forum politique, tribunal national, ou
instrument d'education morale et civique ?). La presente edition
retrace soigneusement l'histoire de ces debats, ainsi que celle du
texte de Laya et de ses representations. L'inclusion en annexe d'un
grand nombre de documents d'archives jusqu'alors inedits enrichit
cette edition et en fait un ouvrage essentiel pour toute personne
s'interessant a la culture revolutionnaire.
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