Beyond the stage

About this book

A collection of analytical essays, focused on visually spectacular theatre productions in Paris between 1890 and 1930, chosen for their interrogation of the spectacular element, that is to say the performance, as 'a text', equal in status to the music and the literary text. Therefore, the different subject areas proposed in these essays reveal a lesser importance of the subject material set to music by composers but a greater willingness, at the centre of the aesthetic renewal of the time, to try out new musical forms or to adapt traditional structures to new dramatic ends. --