Le chant de la prose

"Verse or prose? Hardly any question has concerned librettists, composers and theorists as much as that of the relationship between textual form and melody in opera. This volume presents the first comprehensive reappraisal and analysis of this discussion from the beginnings of opera in France in the 17th century to the prose operas of the naturalists and Debussy. These debates about prose in text and music became particularly virulent in the Querelle des Bouffons and in the arguments over Gluck?s tragédie lyrique. The study highlights experiments with prose libretti, questions of declamation and translation, and the aesthetic controversies around recitative and musical prose, as well as the social and ideological dimensions of the topic. Prose on the operatic stage always involves an opening to the prosaic and thus marks a hotly-debated border between art and everyday life."--Back cover.