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Charles Gounod.
(1818 * 1893.)
A new style and genre of lyric opera of the French opera in the middle of XIX century there were many reasons that affect the problems of development of French opera.
One of the reasons was the serious crisis facing both directions leading into the French operatic culture - the "big" and the comic opera. If the "big" opera 20-30s was influenced by the advanced democratic ideas on the eve of the revolutionary events of 1830 ("William Tell" by Rossini and especially "Les Huguenots," Meyerbeer), in 50-60s under the influence of the changing social and historical conditions (the Second Empire France) "big" opera in decline: The magnitude of the ideological concept disappears - the heroic theme peacefully coexists with the banal fanfare plays, the romantic pathos or substituted rhetoric melodrama, the musical style is diverse and eclectic.
French comic opera, which were fed 30 - 40 years of the origins of people's everyday art, the story is different and brilliant wit, strength development, operatic form - developed solo and ensemble numbers, comes in the middle of the XIX century to the abject poverty of content, to pure entertainment. But it is in her visible two internal trends: one leads to the operetta (Offenbach), with its socio-pointed, topical subjects, the other - to the Lyric Opera. Increased interest in the life of ordinary people, their personal, intimate world of experiences, everyday life is not only a new genre of opera in French art, but also its literature and poetry of an earlier time ("Confessions of a son of the Century" Alfred de Musset was a kind of credo younger generation in France 20 -30s).
Manifestation of a personal relationship to the environment expressed by poets and musicians, primarily in the immediacy and emotional "openness" and passionate speech, in an effort to convince the listener with ceaseless intensity tone recognition, or confession.
These new trends in art had a decisive influence on the emergence of lyric opera. It arose as the antithesis of the "big" and the comic opera, but she could not pass by their achievements and accomplishments in the field of operatic drama and the means of musical expression. The most significant artists of the lyric opera were W. Gounod, A. Thomas, and Delibes. |