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SUMMARY: Wagner\, Offenbach\, and 'la musique de l'avenir' in Paris\, 1860
   - Flora Willson (University of Cambridge)
DTSTART:20130515T160000Z
DTEND:20130515T170000Z
UID:TALK45385@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:30200
DESCRIPTION:In September 1859\, near the end of his long political exile f
 rom Germany\, Richard Wagner returned to Paris. His fortunes had altered c
 onsiderably since his frustrated sojourn there twenty years earlier. The s
 o-called Zurich essays had made his name as an operatic-cum-political fire
 brand throughout Europe\, while a series of extended articles by the emine
 nt critic François-Joseph Fétis in 1852 had given him a formidable - if 
 hotly disputed - local reputation as a 'musicien de l'avenir'. Yet there h
 ad still been only a handful of high-profile performances of his music in 
 the French capital and\, famously\, no stagings of his operas. The Parisia
 n image of the composer as a self-proclaimed musical messiah was thus form
 ed at some remove from first-hand experience. In early 1860\, however\, Wa
 gner organised and conducted three concerts of excerpts from his operas at
  the Théâtre Italien. These events were a financial disaster but proved 
 excellent publicity\, eventually resulting in the notorious Paris Tannhäu
 ser (1861) and\, before that\, provoking sustained (and often impassioned)
  press debate. In this paper I want to examine this first encounter betwee
 n Parisian critics and what they had been primed to hear as a forecast of 
 the musical future. Placing Wagner's concerts in dialogue with another ins
 tance of musical futurology - a satirical 'Symphonie de l'avenir' by Offen
 bach\, performed at his Bouffes-Parisiens only days after Wagner's third c
 oncert - I explore the complex status of 'la musique de l'avenir' in Paris
  in 1860: above all\, the fact that it seemed to cast doubt on the very op
 eratic future it was believed to foretell.\n
LOCATION:Recital Room\, Faculty of Music\, West Road
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