“Sous le rythme de la chanson”

Abstract

The issue of “bad declamation” in French opera drew significant critical attention from composers and scholars in the long nineteenth century, with writers such as Castil-Blaze, Saint-Saëns, and d’Indy noting down perceived faults in French text setting. In this article, I examine examples of “mistreated accents” in nineteenth-century French opera, arguing that French composers from Grétry and Auber to Gounod and Bizet often used rhythm and text setting as a way to differentiate between two different kinds of operatic music: non-diegetic music (singing as speech) and diegetic music (singing as song). The diegetic style was also extended to situations where dance and military topics were used to depict characters performing to onstage audiences. I apply this framework to selected excerpts from Bizet’sCarmenin order to examine the part played by contrasting text-setting styles in the construction of that work’s musical drama.

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