| Paris Eiffel Tower News Home Page |
|
| Paris Hotels Paris Metro Paris Maps Paris Tourism Paris Greeting Cards Paris Monuments Paris Photos Paris Free Museums Partners Sites |
|
Classical Music in Paris:
Some High Spots and Highjinks by Arthur Gillette* |
The national French Opera was created in 1669, and its performances tended to take place at Versailles Royal Court. But Paris Ville has also long hosted classical music creation and public performance. Anecdotes linked to the people and places concerned make for a somewhat wry understanding of the mainly 19 th century classical musical life of the French capital. To be sure, not everything was light and fluffy. The heavy-duty four hour première of Rossini’s William Tell (remember the Lone Ranger signature theme?) in 1829 signed that composer’s decline, for example. In contrast, the Parisian classical music scene also saw lots of surprises, fun and games. A few examples… Le style Napoléon III When the Théâtre des Italiens (now Opéra Comique) was built at the end of the 17th century, its main entrance was placed on the modest Place Boiledieu instead of – as expected – the major artery that came to be known as the Boulevard des Italiens. This caused a wag to rhyme: que le nouveau théâtre est tout italien, car il est disposé de telle manière qu’on lui fait, au passant, présenter le… derrière ! (At the first glance one can see clearly that the new theatre is all-Italian, because it’s laid out in such a way as to present to passersby its… backside!) Another music-architecture laugh came when the Second Empire Paris Prefect (governor) Haussmann ran a competition to design the new opera house after Napoleon III narrowly escaped assassination on leaving the badly congested old one. A young architect called Charles Garnier, with little more under his belt than an internship with Notre Dame restorer Viollet le Duc, won. But his ornate project – later dubbed “an overloaded sideboard” – still had to be approved by Empress Eugénie, a Spaniard who envied the broad boulevards and glitzy new buildings of Victorian London. “Pray tell me, Monsieur,” she admonished Garnier when he presented the design to her, and puckering her lip in near disgust, “what on earth is this style??” A quick thinker (and realizing that his professional head was on the line), Garnier shot back out of whole cloth “Why, Sire, it’s le Style Napoléon III!” “Ah,” sighed the Empress, relieved, “that’s all right then. I can sign.” The Avenue de l’Opéra is the only one of Haussmann’s broad Parisian boulevards devoid of trees, left so on purpose still today to enable admiration of, at its upper end, the recently restored “sideboard” it took Garnier 14 years to complete. Modulate, Modulate! An international Mecca practically from its creation in 1795 for often very young and talented pupils (Saint-Saëns entered at 11 years, Debussy was… ten!), the National Conservatory of Music and Declamation (i.e. drama) was the scene of more than one humorous run-in. Its early 19th-century Director enforced a rule against allowing matriculation of non-French. How Belgian César Franck managed to sneak in, I haven’t been able to discover. But the answer to Hungarian Ferenc (Franz) Liszt was an irrevocable non! The kicker is that the Director in question was Luigi Cherubini, who happened to be… Italian. The kicker to the kicker is that Liszt’s parents retaliated by renting a Paris concert hall for what was a runaway success by their son, who probably didn’t regret not having to suffer through endless course work and boring practice at the Conservatory. Hector Berlioz was looked on as such a renegade when studying at the Conservatory that his work wasn’t performed there; and a plaque honoring him was only unveiled there in… 2003! Tradition and innovation certainly vied regularly between these august walls. When Gabriel Fauré became Director of the Conservatory in 1905, he undertook strenuous reforms that earned him the nickname “Robespierre.” Teaching a Conservatory piano improvisation course, César Franck once shouted at young Claude Debussy “Modulate, modulate!” “Why?” retorted Debussy, “I’m quite happy where I am.” Another instructor commented to student Debussy “I’m not saying that what you write isn’t pretty, but it’s theoretically absurd.” “Just listen to me play,” came the answer, “There is no theory; pleasure is the only law.” Another exchange of niceties came between Debussy and up-and-coming whimsical innovator Eric Satie. Taunted Satie on one occasion: “Maître Debussy has always refused the Legion of Honor, but all his music has always accepted it!” Fact of the matter is that, under pressure from his parents, Debussy did accept the Legion of Honor. Which didn’t prevent him from orchestrating… Satie’s piano-scored Gymnopédie. The 19th century Paris classical scene brought music into the modern epoch. Consider Jacques Offenbach: his early works, such as Orpheus in the Underworld and La Belle Hélène, drew on Greek mythology, perhaps partly to disguise his critique of contemporary mores and thus avoid the censor’s heavy hand. His later La Vie Parisienne is right up-to-date, however: it opens in a… train station! And Bizet’s Carmen begins outside a cigarette factory, while Darius Milhaud’s Ox on the Roof is set in an American-style bar with a Black barkeep! Could have been 2005…--- |
| Copyright © Paris Eiffel Tower News |