French Baroque Opera: A Reader (review)

Abstract

"Every sea monster, for example, should be at least 18 feet long by 6 feet wide with an aperture in its head that could gobble up a twenty-year-old; how ridiculous a monster seems if it is reduced to snapping like a common guard dog. That is truly ignoble" (p. 125). So opined a Burgundian noblewoman in response to a court performance of Jean-Baptiste Lully's opera Persée in 1747. This delightfully evocative and historically telling statement joins a remarkably varied and revealing collection of source readings now easily accessible in English, thanks to Carolyn Wood and Graham Sadler's French Baroque Opera: A Reader. Because interest in this repertory is burgeoning and little of the diverse literature generated by French opera is readily available in English, the book's aim is "to present a coherent sequence of translations which, between them, provide a wide-ranging and informative survey of the organization and evolution of French baroque opera, its aims and aspirations, its strengths and weaknesses" (p. viii). One can happily add "and its reception" to this list.