Summary

The genre of m lodrame grand spectacle that emerged in the boulevard theatres of Paris in the 1790s - and which was quickly exported abroad - expressed the moral struggle between good and evil through a drama of heightened emotions. Physical gesture, mise en sc ne and music were as important in communicating meaning and passion as spoken dialogue. The premise of this volume is the idea that the melodramatic aesthetic is central to our understanding of nineteenth-century music drama, broadly defined as spoken plays with music, operas and other hybrid genres that combine music with text and/or image. This relationship is examined closely, and its evolution into the twentieth century - in film, musical and opera - is explored as the development of a nineteenth-century aesthetic. The book therefore develops our understanding of melodrama's multifarious influence on opera in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the context of melodrama's broader impact on musical culture. The book will appeal to those interested in film studies, drama, theatre and modern languages as well as music and opera.