Opéra de Salon: Parisian Societies and Spaces in the Second Empire

In Op廨a de salon: Parisian Societies and Salons in the Second Empire, author Mark Everist brings to light a genre and a set of cultural practices that have long been obscured. Approximately 130 op廨as de salon were composed and performed up to ca. 1875, and, as Everist demonstrates, they represent a significant generic trajectory in the history of nineteenth century music and theatre. Produced by major composers and librettists of the day, these works play into questions of gender, age, and urban topography in ways unlike other musical and theatrical genres of the day. Everist's focus is on the salon--the domestic, the private--but he also shows how op廨a de salon moves effortlessly between intimate familial space, the more public salon, to the public and largely commercial concert hall in ways that prompt reflection on the status of all these critical categories. Ultimately, Everist challenges the hermetic discipline of 'opera studies' by opening up massive repertories that are still unknown, and by developing critical practices that go beyond traditional categories of theatres, institutions, consumers, and creators.