From the 17th century to today, to what extend is French opera a "product" of French politics?

Résumé du document

Opera is a musical form of art in which the text is often sung. The singers enact the drama on stage, with costumes and other visual elements like dancing or a play of lights. Though it is often considered that opera was born in Italy around 1600, but even if Mazarin tried to import it to France at the end of the 1660's, it was only with the arrival of Jean-Baptiste Lully that opera began to take real importance in the country. It must first be highlighted that the opera was often considered, by many composers, as a good political way of expression since it is the most complete art form to show human passions, because of its various aspects: scenery, costumes, dancing, singing etc. Since the French revolution the opera was a good instrument of propaganda and vector of politics. The French opera was also a political anticipator and a "producer" of general trends. While the composers had to deal with censorship and other types of control, the messages delivered were sometimes more than just state propaganda. The "political opera" is nowadays a recognized type of opera, in which criticisms can be made.

Extraits

[...] Since the 17th century in France, the opera is an important part of the social life and developed itself to adapt to its customers. Gathering the elites of a country or a town, the opera is a political place where the high-society meets. Contrary to the Italian one, the French opera stayed for a long time open only to a certain kind of people, from the king to the court, from the aristocracy to the bourgeoisie. Even today it is still a relatively underestimated political vector. [...]

[...] At the same time, the development of the concept of “exoticism” in the opera permitted to create, by comparison, a French identity, with different French norms, customs and habits. Molière first introduced Egyptians in his “Malade Imaginaire”. Then, based on a “paradigmatic many exotic operas developed, caricaturising the others countries and creating, by the negative, a French difference. The unknown Spain is painted in by Bizet (1875), which takes place in Andalucia. It shows a real trend of the time and an attraction for this country. [...]

[...] I know many people of my age- twenty years old- who has never been in the opera and who finds it boring and old-fashioned.: is it today an efficient political vector since it still concerns a certain part of the population? Is it developed enough to play a real role in the society? Being financed partly by the state, is the opera independent enough? Many questions can be asked considering the political role of the opera today, even if its past role is undeniable. [...]

[...] During the 19th century, there were policemen attending the shows to control what was happening and to keep people quiet and the French opera had to respect precise rules. The authors and composers, to have the possibility to have their shows played, had often to transform the reality changing for example the name of the state were the action was taking place or using metaphoric characters. The tiny relationship between French opera and French politics has been highlighted here: everything in the form and in the use made of it by the political leaders let us think that the French opera was, and maybe still is since it is yet partly financed by the state, a “product” of French official politics. [...]

[...] From the 17th century to today, to what extend is French opera a “product” of French politics? The title of the conference, “French opera: a political art form” let us think that French opera is a way of delivering political messages. During the semester, the students of the seminar could see how the interactions and interrelations between the opera and the power were important in Europe. I will here focus on France, from the seventeenth century with the birth of a French way of making opera to nowadays, trying to understand how a type of art, dedicated to be seen and listened by people, can be an official, but also unofficial, political tool. [...]