From voice to text: Parisian opera and material culture, 1790--1870

The social status of singing changed radically over the course of the nineteenth century. During the French revolution, song was a central fixture in urban life, figuring prominently not only in the arts, but also in commerce and politics. By the turn of the twentieth century, singing had moved to the aestheticized margins of modern life. This dissertation accounts for such a marginalization of song. A reexamination of the relationship between Parisian opera and its material means of circulation shows that the many social functions of singing moved gradually from voice to text during the nineteenth century. A radical expansion of material culture transformed song from a ubiquitous, meaningful practice into a distant, ineffable fixture. This thesis is examined through four case studies. The first focuses on the French revolution, finding echoes of Rousseau's theorizations of song throughout this phonocentric era. The second sketches a material and social history of musical print culture in the nineteenth century, tracing an unprecedented expansion in volume with severe aesthetic consequences for opera. The third traces these consequences in greater detail by examining the role of material culture in the birth and death of French grand opera. The final study examines and contextualizes the reception history of Jacques Offenbach and Richard Wagner in later nineteenth century France, understanding the former's frivolity and the latter's ineffability as critically dependent on a new culture of mediation through texts.