Conclusion

Abstract

This chapter provides the conclusion to the book, in which music drama in the Odéon is discussed. The Odéon was a royal institution embedded in an administrative network that depended ultimately on the monarch; the regulation of this structure fixed the relations between all royal theaters in a way which controlled many aspects of their day-to-day running from the time that cleaners had to be out of a building right up to the sorts of music drama for each to perform and the amount of each subvention. The operatic repertory of the Odéon in the 1820s fell into three categories: opéra comique in the public domain, occasional works and pasticci, and translated music drama. The Odéon gave a home to music drama during the 1820s, and the decade saw its origins, rise, and fall as an opera house. Neither the Académie royale de musique at the beginning of the 1830s nor the Théâtre italien at their end offers a genuine point of departure for an institutional comparison.