Jacques Offenbach Research Articles

Fantastic Voyages of the Cinematic Imagination: Georges Méélièès's ““Trip to the Moon””, Matthew Solomon (ed.)

Reviewed by: Fantastic Voyages of the Cinematic Imagination: Georges Méliès's "Trip to the Moon." David Levy Fantastic Voyages of the Cinematic Imagination: Georges Méliès's "Trip to the Moon." Edited by Matthew Solomon (Albany: SUNY Press, 2011). This anthology of essays devoted to Georges Méliès's 1902 motion picture sensation Le Voyage dans la Lune makes it clear how much the assessment of Méliès has changed. That may be the volume's chief value. On the other hand, the essays do not tell us all that much we did not already know about the man's work; key essays by Paolo Cherchi Usai, Thierry Lefebvre and André Gaureault are not new. Perhaps a fantastical idea in 1902, the original tale of a voyage to the moon as a "nowhere land" appears to have been True History, the work of a second-century Syrian author writing in Greek, Lucian of Samosata. In mid January 1898, The New York Journal began publication of a serialization entitled "Edison's Conquest of Mars". Was the illustrated firecracker-shaped rocket approaching the faraway red planet featured in the first installment the inspiration for the Méliès space ship? Responding to the reality of a range of prints in black and white and color tints, and of different lengths, Paolo Cherchi Usai urges that we treat each print as an entity unto itself and not seek definitiveness. And Richard Abel tells us that as a consequence of a range of dubious - though by no means unique - practices, many members of the film's large original American audience had no idea of the identity of its French creator, associating it with the Edison studio. The invitation to pronounce on the famous movie granted contributors license to revisit an older question: what did Georges Méliès have to do with the emergence of the edited narrative? The answer: little if anything. In a reversal of what had been a cliché of early cinema history, the Méliès opus is now regarded as pre-cinema. This is a point reinforced in part by the deliberately backward-looking perspective of many of the essays. The illusionism of the féerie - Méliès's evident debt to the litterateurs Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, and to Jacques Offenbach's 1875 "fairy-opera" La Voyage dans la lune - are now regarded as having had virtually nothing to do with what cinema became. Victoria Duckett offers a reading of Méliès's manipulation of female presence in Voyage that draws on Laura Mulvey's appropriation of Jacques Lacan's concept of the gaze. Having lost its one-time enormous audience, the gaze the film itself now attracts is the gaze of the specialist in aesthetic and historical contemplation examining a museum piece. The essays conclude with a citation by Viva Paci of words from Georges Franju's hommage in Le Grand Méliès (1953): "... I think perhaps you understand now why without Georges Méliès this movie and many others could never have been made". But in context this is a sentiment at odds with the anthology's larger unspoken hypothesis about the severe limits of the Frenchman's influence, no longer hailed as the great inspiration of Edwin Porter and D.W. Griffith. Murray Pomerance finds in each of Voyage's scenes "a dreamlike condensation" of abstract [End Page 349] distances, which makes a point not unrelated to Tom Gunning's now familiar claim that the work of Méliès represented a pre-narrative "cinema of attractions." Seizing on the Gunning claim, André Gaudeault has proposed that we understand the Méliès moonshot as sui generis, i.e. as a species of kine-attractography rather than as a stage, however primitive, in the evolution of the edited narrative: "Our task is to convince ourselves that the fundamental point of rupture in film history was not the invention of the moving picture camera in the 1890s (the Kinetograph, the Cinematograph) but rather the constitution of the institution 'cinema' in the 1910s, an institution whose first principle was a systematic rejection of the ways and...

Can Stage Directors Make Opera and Popular Culture ‘Equal’?

Can Stage Directors Make Opera and Popular Culture ‘Equal’?

Offenbach in Arabien

AbstractTwice, the theatre of Jacques Offenbach exerted a marked influence on musical theatre in Egypt. The first occasion was a number of performances of his most popular opéra-bouffes, in French and by French artists, around 1870. The ruler, Ismā'īl, tried to introduce European culture in Egypt and gave Offenbach's work a central role in that endeavour. With Ismā'īl's decline, that attempt was discontinued. The second appearance occurred in 1920/21. Then, two of the most popular musical comedies of the famous Egyptian composer Sayyid Darwīš had Offenbach's works as their sources. These works were translated into Egyptian Arabic, given an oriental setting and an Egyptian colour, e.g. by having the lyrics written by popular Egyptian poets. The main message of the original pieces—attacking the military and the authorities in general by ridiculing them—was changed by introducing a clear anti-Turkish thrust, thus castigating the aristocracy ruling Egypt at the time of the adaptation and, by implication, the British occupation. Whereas the text of the Egyptian pieces was quite closely inspired by the French originals, the music shows no signs of direct influence by Offenbach—it is vintage Sayyid Darwīš. The article also sheds some light on the musical theatre of the brothers Rahbānī in Lebanon that has not been directly inspired by Offenbach but exhibits a spirit quite close to his and thus lends itself to a comparison.

Austria and France: Introduction

Austria and France Introduction ROBERT VILAIN Relations between Austria and France have been characterized by enduring political antipathy, not to say overt hostility, and by profound respect, even empathy, in the cultural sphere ? and sometimes by all of these at once. Whilst this is no doubt true to some extent of every relationship between great nations and cultures, the paradoxes are particularly striking in this instance. It has been observed that ? quite apart from earlier conflicts such as the Thirty Years' War ? France and Austria have been at war no less than nine times between 1715 and 1918, and came to the brink of conflict several more times between the 1720s and 1848.1 Yet periods as disparate as the reign of Maria Theresia and the flowering of Viennese Modernism around 1900 were decisively marked by the influence of France. The development of French music in the nineteenth century is unthinkable without the models of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. However, as is perhaps evident even from this choice of examples, the fact that there has long been a reciprocity of interest on many different levels between Austria and France does not necessarily mean that such interest and awareness have been evenly balanced. For better or forworse, a knowledge ofAustria and her history, literature and culture isnot a sine qua non for the educated French citizen in the way that a familiarity with France and things French has been part and parcel of the cultural awareness of an educated Austrian. Research conducted in 1999 on Austria's image in France suggests a positive, even appreciative awareness on the part of the French public, although the image that has been received is a relatively superficial, picture-postcard one.2 The most successful Austrian cultural 'exports' have probably been in the field of music, a traffic that has not been so marked in the 1 The dates of the wars are listed in Paul W. Schroeder, Pointless Enduring Rivalry. France and the Habsburg Monarchy, 1715-1918', in Great Power Rivalries, ed. byWilliam R. Thompson (Columbia, SC, 1999), pp. 60-79 (P- 62): 1733-35, 1741-48, 1792-97, 1799-1801, 1805, 1809, 1813-14, 1815, 1859, 1914-18; during the war of 1939-45, Austria did not, of course, exist as a separate political entity. 2 See Silke D?rnberger, Entwicklung und Status quo franz?sisch-?sterreichischer Kultur transfers im literarhistorischen Kontext. Eine europ?ische Zweierbeziehung, Europ?ische Hoch schulschriften, Series 13: Franz?sische Sprache und Literatur 265 (Frankfurt a. M., 2002), p. 7. 2 Introduction opposite direction (with the exception of Jacques Offenbach, perhaps). There is, of course, a substantial body of work studying the relationship of the two countries, from the very earliest periods to the present day,3 and the present Introduction is no more than a sketch of some of the most striking cultural features of that relationship. Contacts between Austria and France date back to the Middle Ages, when French pilgrims crossed Austria or sailed down the Danube towards the Holy Land. A cluster of dynastic liaisons was inaugurated with the marriage of Rudolf of Habsburg to Isabella of Burgundy in 1284; Rudolfs grandson, Rudolf HI, married the sister of Philippe IV. In 1477 the daughter of Charles le T?m?raire, Maria of Burgundy, married Archduke Maximilian, later Holy Roman Emperor. And yet it was the extension of just such dense dynastic interconnections, making a powerful union of Austria, Bohemia and Hungary, that lay at the root of the centuries-long political antagonism that characterized the relationship of France and Austria.4 The occupation of the Spanish throne by a Habsburg presented a threat to France that did not end until the accession of the Duc d'Anjou as Philip V, confirmed by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. During this period political relations were more often hostile than cooperative. Between 1494 and 1715 the Spanish and Austrian Hapsburgs and the Valois and Bourbon kings of France fought repeatedly in great, exhausting wars [...]. Both were bidding for European hegemony [...]. Each posed a direct, massive security threat to the other [...]. Almost every kind of stake was involved? particular territories (the Low Countries, the borderlands of modern eastern France...

An Anthology of French Operatic Arias for Soprano: 19th Century Repertoire, and: An Anthology of French Operatic Arias for Mezzo-Soprano: 19th Century Repertoire, and: An Anthology of French Operatic Arias for Tenor: 19th Century Repertoire, and: An Anthology of French Operatic Arias for Baritone: 19th Century Repertoire, and: An Anthology of French Operatic Arias for Bass: 19th Century Repertoire (review)

An Anthology of French Operatic Arias for Soprano: 19th Century Repertoire. Selected and edited by Roger Nichols; complete with translations and guidance on pronunciation.London: Edition Peters, c2000. [Pref. in Eng., Ger., p. iv-v; aria texts in Eng., Fr., Ger., p. vi-xv; vocal scores, p. 1-125; list of sources and crit. remarks, p. 127. ISMN M-57708-289-9; EP 7552. $24.95.] Note: cover title used in heading; title page has French Operatic Arias for Soprano. Contains arias by Daniel Auber, Hector Berlioz, Georges Bizet, Léo Delibes, Charles Gounod, Édouard Lalo, [End Page 1028] Jules Massenet, Giacomo Meyerbeer, Jacques Offenbach, Gioachino Rossini, Ambroise Thomas, and Giuseppe Verdi.

Review: Jacques Offenbach and the Paris of his Time

Jacques Offenbach and the Paris of his Time Siegfried Kracauer 418 Zone Books New York 2002 £23.50 1‐890951‐30‐7

Jacques Offenbach and the Paris of His Time (review)

Jacques Offenbach and the Paris of His Time (review)

Homère et le mélodrame

L'argomento di questa relazione sono i lavori musicali derivati dai poemi omerici. La guerra di Troia non ha influenzato un numéro eccessivo di opère : se si eccettuano la versione comica di Jacques Offenbach (La belle Hélène, 1864) e la monumentale trascrizione dell'Eneide virgiliana composta da Hector Berlioz negli anni 1856-8 (Les Troyens, 1856-8, rappresentati per la prima volta soltanto nel 1890), si puô giusto citare il King Priam (1962) del compositore inglese Michael Tippett. Dall'altra parte, il viaggio di Ulisse ha invece dato origine a un'incredibile quantità di versioni operistiche : si va da Claudio Monteverdi (II ritorno di Ulisse in patria, 1641) a Luciano Berio (Outis, 1995), attraverso musicisti come Domenico Cimarosa (Penelope, 1794), Charles Gounod (autore delle musiche di scena dell'Ulysse di Ponsard, 1852), Gabriel Fauré (Pénélope, 1913), Rolf Liebermann (Penelope, 1954) e Luigi Dallapiccola (Ulisse, 1968).

La carrière posthume d'un musicien ou Offenbach aux Enfers

Abstract The career of Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880) after his death is marked by the apparition of«of- fenbachian mythologies», and the author of this article intends to study how they were made up and then evolved. From 1887 onwards, when his wife died, a distorted image was given of Offenbach, especially by the music-hall which, around 1900, tended to make him the master of «French-cancan», while The Tales of Hoffmann were staged after several différents versions. In the inter-war period, Germany appropriated the musician, while his repertoire was often reduced to the ballet composed by Manuel Rosenthal, Gaîté parisienne. More recently, there appeared a wish to go back to the original works ; yet it is too often thwarted by the habit of rewriting the librettos and reor- chestrating the scores.

Les contes d'Hoffmann. Jacques Offenbach

Les contes d'Hoffmann. Jacques Offenbach Niel Rishoi Niel Rishoi Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Opera Quarterly, Volume 18, Issue 3, SUMMER , Pages 405–407, https://doi.org/10.1093/oq/18.3.405 Published: 01 July 2002

Review of book. Jacques Offenbach. J-C Yon

Journal Article REVIEWS OF BOOKS Get access Jacques Offenbach. By Jean-Claude Yon pp. 796. (Gallimard, Paris, 2000. F. 195. ISBN 2-07-074775-1.) ANDREW LAMB ANDREW LAMB Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Music and Letters, Volume 82, Issue 4, November 2001, Pages 642–644, https://doi.org/10.1093/ml/82.4.642 Published: 01 November 2001

"Light Sorrow": Siegfried Kracauer as Literary Critic

To study a well-known author within a lesser-known discipline is not to diminish his accomplishments or stature. Historians of modem thought are well aware that Siegfried Kracauer was first an architect, then a sociologist, ajournalist, and a novelist, and finally a historian and a theorist of film and historiography. But are we thus obligated to maintain that he approached his Sociology as Science scientifically, his novels literarily, The White-Collar Workers sociologically, Jacques Offenbach musically, film cinematically, and history historically, as his critics in the various disciplines have traditionally argued? In other words, did his object determine his methods, or did his methods determine his objects? To be sure, the architect used buildings to critique imperial architecture; the novelist wrote Ginster and Georg to critique New Objectivity; the sociologist used montage imagery to critique The White-Collar Workers; the chronicler of the Second Empire used its internal tendencies toward Bonapartism to critique the Kaiserreich; the film historian put fascism on trial; the philosopher of history Kracauer's last role critiqued the privileging of linear time. Using existing conditions as his raw material, this author managed to propose countermodels for these same conditions for always implicit in his critique was an emphatic belief in the perfectability of the basic social contract. As Kracauer developed from a critic of his day into a historiographer of his time, the energy driving him, already apparent in his work at the Frankfurter Zeitung, was later channeled into deeply meditative books that took decades to write. There is no question that the exile experience was damaging to every aspect of the exiles' lives, and Kracauer was no exception. Still, the trace left by this transition in the fabric of

La belle Hélène. Jacques Offenbach

Journal Article La belle Hélène. Jacques Offenbach Get access Alan Rich Alan Rich Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Opera Quarterly, Volume 4, Issue 2, Autumn 1986, Pages 131–133, https://doi.org/10.1093/oq/4.2.131 Published: 01 October 1986