Resituating Transatlantic Opera: the Case of the Théâtre D'orléans, New
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Resituating Transatlantic Opera: The Case of the Théâtre d’Orléans, New Orleans, 1819–1859 Charlotte Alice Bentley Emmanuel College October 2017 This dissertation is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy ABSTRACT This thesis examines the production and reception of French opera in New Orleans in the first half of the nineteenth century, through a focus on the city’s principal French-language theatre from 1819 to 1859, the Théâtre d’Orléans. Building on the small body of existing scholarship concerning the theatre’s history and repertoire, here I draw upon a greatly expanded range of sources—including court cases, sheet music, and novels—in order to understand more about the ways in which operatic culture shaped and was shaped by city life in this period. New Orleans’s operatic life relied on transatlantic networks of people and materials in order to thrive, and this thesis explores the city’s place within growing global operatic systems in the nineteenth century. The five chapters each reflect on different aspects of operatic translocation and its significance for New Orleans. The first two argue for the centrality of human agency to the development of transatlantic networks of production and performance by examining the management of the theatre and the international movement of singers in turn. Chapter 3 investigates the impact of French grand opéra on New Orleans, arguing that the genre provided a focus for the negotiation of local, national, and international identities among opposing critical (and linguistic) factions within the city, while also providing an impetus for the development of a material culture of opera. Chapter 4 explores opera-inspired composition in New Orleans through a focus on popular sheet music for the piano, in order to problematise our expectations of ‘local creativity’. Finally, Chapter 5 examines travel writing from both sides of the Atlantic in which the Théâtre d’Orléans features, arguing that the ‘idea’ of opera—including the imagined experience of Parisian opera-going— played an important role in articulating the authors’ perceptions of inter-cultural encounter in New Orleans. This thesis, therefore, seeks to unpick the processes involved in transatlantic opera from a number of angles. I resituate New Orleans, arguing that the city was not simply on the musical periphery, but that it was instead an integral part of an increasingly connected operatic world, which nonetheless sustained its own individual theatrical culture. This work, therefore, helps us both to challenge and expand ingrained ideas about French centralisation, North American cultural development, and cultural transfer up to the mid- nineteenth century. DECLARATION This dissertation is the result of my own work. It is not substantially the same as any that I have submitted for a degree or diploma or other qualification at the University of Cambridge or any other University. I further state that no substantial part of my dissertation has already been submitted, or is being concurrently submitted, for any such degree, diploma or other qualification at the University of Cambridge or any other University. Material from the first half of Chapter 3, in which I explore the reception of Meyerbeer’s Robert le diable and Les Huguenots in New Orleans, along with some factual information from the first two chapters, has been published as ‘The Race for Robert and Other Rivalries: Negotiating the Local and (Inter)national in Nineteenth-Century New Orleans’ in Cambridge Opera Journal 29/1 (2017), 94–112. This submission does not exceed the limit of 80,000 words (excluding notes, bibliography and appendices) set by the Degree Committee of the Faculty of Music. i TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS ...................................................................................................... i LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................. ii LIST OF TABLES .............................................................................................................. iv NOTE ON THE TEXT ........................................................................................................ v ABBREVIATIONS ............................................................................................................ vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................... vii INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 1 ...................................................................................................................... 27 The Théâtre d’Orléans and its Agents: Developing a Transatlantic Cultural Institution CHAPTER 2 ...................................................................................................................... 63 Uncovering Networks of Performance: The Singers of the Théâtre d’Orléans CHAPTER 3 .................................................................................................................... 105 The Impact of French grand opéra in New Orleans CHAPTER 4 .................................................................................................................... 149 Rethinking ‘Local Creativity’: The Influence of the Théâtre d’Orléans on Composition in New Orleans CHAPTER 5 .................................................................................................................... 191 Reimagining New Orleans: Operatic Travelogues CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................ 225 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................ 239 APPENDIX ...................................................................................................................... 267 ii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 – The Théâtre d'Orléans. LARC, Albert Voss Collection, Series 5, Box 16 .......................... ix Figure 2 – Detail of map of New Orleans from Guillaume-Tell Poussin, Travaux d'améliorations intérieures projetés ou exécutés par le gouvernement général des Etats-Unis d'Amérique de 1824 à 1831 (Paris, 1843), Bibliothèque nationale de France. GR FOL-PB ............................................... 4 Figure 1.1 – Drawing of General Henry Clay by Develle, as part of H. E. Lehmann's 'Grand March For General Henry Clay', HJA, Box 32, Folder 16 ........................................................................... 54 Figure 1.2 – ‘The French Market and Red Store’ by Louis Dominique Grandjean Develle, LSM ... 55 Figure 2.1 – Julia Calvé, taken from Joseph Gabriel de Baroncelli, Le Théâtre français à la Nouvelle-Orléans: essai historique (New Orleans: Imprimerie G. Muller, 1906) , 37 .................... 68 Figure 2.2 – Eugène Prévost, carte de visite. Image belongs to author ........................................ 70 Figure 2.3 – Juliette Bourgeois as Rose Friquet from Aimé Maillart’s Dragons de Villars, by Emile Desmaisons (1856). Bibliothèque nationale de France ................................................................. 72 Figure 3.1 – Advertisement for Robert le diable, L'Abeille, 11 May 1835 ................................... 114 Figure 3.2 – Text as sung at Covent Garden and Drury Lane, quoted in The Bee, 16 May 1835 . 117 Figure 3.3 – Cover of Fiot's edition of Bellini's Norma, New Orleans (1853). LARC, Albert Voss Collection, Series 1, Box 1 Folder 2 .............................................................................................. 135 Figure 3.4 – Title page of programme for one of Jenny Lind's concerts in New Orleans 1851. LARC, 976.31 (780.73) S136p ....................................................................................................... 136 Figure 3.5 – Cast list inside Fiot's edition of Si j'étais roi, New Orleans (1856). LARC, Albert Voss Collection, Series 1 Box 1 Folder 1 ............................................................................................... 138 Figure 4.1 – Caricature of Fourmestreaux, La Revue louisianaise 4/10 (1 August 1848) ............ 155 Figure 4.2 – Cover of the published ‘Cavatine’ from Curto's Tancrède (1852), HJA, Maxwell Sheet Music Collection, Volume 42: Emilia Carriere, Item 7 ................................................................. 160 Figure 4.3 – Example of a cut marked in pencil in manuscript score of Curto's Le Lépreux, AAS, Louisiana Collection, 1779–1937 ................................................................................................. 162 Figure 4.4 – Detail from cover of Eugène Chassaignac, ‘Dis-Moi/Tell Me’, HNOC, M1621.C48 T4 1850 ............................................................................................................................................. 172 iii iii Figure 4.5 – Detail from cover of the ‘Pelican Polka’ by H. E. Lehmann (New Orleans, 1855), HNOC, M31.L4 P4 1855 ................................................................................................................ 174 Figure 4.6 – Second page of ‘L’Etoile du Nord, grande polka’ by H. E. Lehmann, dedicated to Louis Moreau Gottschalk. HJA, Maxwell Sheet Music Collection, Box 420, Folder 29.......................... 178 Figure 4.7 – Detail from Bizot, ‘Les Filles de marbre Polka’, HNOC, M31.M65 P6 1865 .............. 179 Figure 4.8 – Detail from Lehmann, ‘Les Filles de marbre Polka’,