This book examines the shifting attitudes toward Wagner reflected in the Parisian press during the period of the Third Reich. Paradoxically, during one of the darkest periods of French history, as the German threat grew more tangible and then manifested in the Nazi occupation of France, Parisians chose to see in Wagner a universality that transcended his Germanness. As Franco-German diplomatic relations gradually worsened in the 1930s, Wagner became an increasingly integral part of French musical culture. Parisians were unwilling to surrender Wagner to German exclusivist claims. In previous decades the French had used Wagner to symbolize a diverse array of political arguments and positions, from right-wing nationalism to left-wing humanism and egalitarianism, In the 1930s, however, the Parisian press depicted him as a universalist. Although Wagner had stood in for German nationalism and chauvinism in recent periods of Franco-German conflict, in the 1930s Parisians refused this notion and attempted to reclaim his role in their own national history and imagination. Even once war was declared in 1939 and a ban on the performance of Wagner's music was implemented, commentators insisted that it was simply a temporary measure designed to avoid public disturbance. Simultaneously, they maintained that 'music has no borders,' and that 'it is childish to mix art and politics.' The Wagner discourses that emerged from the 1930s Parisian press paved the way for the dominant Wagner discourse in the German-controlled Occupation press: Collaboration through Wagner. By a great irony of history, the concept of Wagner the universalist that had been used to resist the Nazis in the 1930s was transformed into the infamous collaborationist rhetoric promoted by the Vichy government between 1940 and 1944"--
This thesis examines the diachronic reception of Jewishness in Fromental Halévy's 1835 grand opera La Juive. It considers five productions of the opera, including two 19th-century productions and three contemporary revival productions, each staged in a different city. Chapter One deals with the premiere production at the Paris Opéra in 1835 and Chapter Two focuses on performances in London at various theatres between 1835 and 1850. Chapter Three examines the first major revival production, performed in Vienna in 1999, and Chapter Four looks at the performance of this same production at the New York Metropolitan Opera in 2003. Lastly, Chapter Five investigates a production staged by the Israeli Opera in Tel Aviv in 2010. Each chapter of the thesis is devoted to one production and divided into two parts. The first part establishes a contextual background for the second, which is concerned with reception. The background sections include discussion of historical, social, political and cultural issues that may have influenced the reception of Jewishness in each production. The sections on reception employ music reviews and press articles to examine responses to La Juive. These responses are then used, together with contextual research, to draw conclusions about attitudes toward Jews and Jewishness at that moment in time. Attitudes toward Jewishness are examined in various contexts and the thesis aims to uncover these attitudes even when they remain unspoken. It analyses explicit and implicit references to Halévy's Jewishness, interest in the tenor Neil Shicoff's Jewishness, ideas about 'Jewish music', opinions on the opera's theme of Jewish-Christian conflict, and attitudes toward contemporary stagings of the work and the ways in which they engage with post-Holocaust audiences. It is also concerned with how Jewish themes and issues allowed an arguably unpopular, outdated 19th-century genre to be revitalised in the 20th and 21st centuries. This thesis investigates how a musical and theatrical work has changed in meaning over time, and how these changes are influenced by the time, place and circumstances in which the work is performed. My focus on the reception of Jewishness illuminates the roles of history, memory and identity in the construction of meaning in a work of art."--Back cover.
This book examines the shifting attitudes toward Wagner reflected in the Parisian press during the period of the Third Reich. Paradoxically, during one of the darkest periods of French history, as the German threat grew more tangible and then manifested in the Nazi occupation of France, Parisians chose to see in Wagner a universality that transcended his Germanness. As Franco-German diplomatic relations gradually worsened in the 1930s, Wagner became an increasingly integral part of French musical culture. Parisians were unwilling to surrender Wagner to German exclusivist claims. In previous decades the French had used Wagner to symbolize a diverse array of political arguments and positions, from right-wing nationalism to left-wing humanism and egalitarianism, In the 1930s, however, the Parisian press depicted him as a universalist. Although Wagner had stood in for German nationalism and chauvinism in recent periods of Franco-German conflict, in the 1930s Parisians refused this notion and attempted to reclaim his role in their own national history and imagination. Even once war was declared in 1939 and a ban on the performance of Wagner's music was implemented, commentators insisted that it was simply a temporary measure designed to avoid public disturbance. Simultaneously, they maintained that 'music has no borders,' and that 'it is childish to mix art and politics.' The Wagner discourses that emerged from the 1930s Parisian press paved the way for the dominant Wagner discourse in the German-controlled Occupation press: Collaboration through Wagner. By a great irony of history, the concept of Wagner the universalist that had been used to resist the Nazis in the 1930s was transformed into the infamous collaborationist rhetoric promoted by the Vichy government between 1940 and 1944"--
Brings new insights to the music of well-known European composers by telling a fascinating, little-known story about French music publishing, specifically through the lens of Jacques Durand's Édition Classique. French composers, performers and musicologists acted as editors of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European 'classics', primarily for piano. Among these editors were Fauré, Saint-Saëns, Debussy, Ravel and Dukas; the objects of their enquiries included core works by Rameau, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schumann and Chopin. Presenting six composer-editor case studies, the volume shows that the French 'accent', both musical and cultural, upon this predominantly Austro-German music was highly varied. Editorial responses range from scholarly approaches to those directed by performance or compositional agendas, and from pan-European to strongly patriotic stances. Intriguing intersections are revealed between old and new, and between French and cross-European canons. Beyond editing, the book explores the Édition's role in pedagogy and performance, including by pianists Robert Casadesus and Yvonne Loriod, and in the reassertion of contemporary French composition, especially regarding innovation around neoclassicism. It will interest a wide readership, including musicologists, performers and concert-goers, cultural historians and other humanities scholars.
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