Gothic Opera as Romantic Discourse in Britain and France: A Cross-Cultural Dialogue

Abstract

The term 'British opera' has often been thought an oxymoron. In fact, the endlessly repeated motif of imprisonment and escape is so pervasive that the modem critic knows that it bears the weight of the opera's ideological meaning. Each opera presents a political and social warning to the monarchy: reform or be overthrown by violence, which certainly would seem to constitute something of an anarchist message. The specter of the French Revolution hangs over each of these works, and all of them introduce middle-class characters who embody the best of what Britain and France must become if they are to avoid violent and chaotic. As Robert Miles has noted, those involved in the invention of the gothic embraced the hieratic function of keeping alive the sacred mementoes of the race. Most musicologists agree that Michel-Jean Sedaine was the founder of the rescue opera melodrama.

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