Cherubinis Pariser Opern (1788-1803)

The focus of my study is on the problems that one composer encountered on his professional path through the period of the French revolution. I discuss operatic terminology and features of theatrical history in Rousseau, Diderot and other authors. Cherubini’s published and unpublished operas are discussed in the context of specific issues, such as “scenic illusion and ‘musique d’effet’ in Lodoïska, the “quest for the sublime in Eliza”, the “unfinished myth of Médée”, and so on. Yet, the most difficult aspect in the study of Cherubini’s career is to come to terms with his decision to abandon the emotive and energetic style, with which he was later identified by Wagner, Brahms and others. I show that Cherubini not only participated in parodies of the revolutionary style which were highly successful in 1798, but he also collaborated in the discussion, writing, and acceptance of teaching manuals at the Conservatoire after 1800, in which the compositional techniques, that he had mastered in the previous decade, are omitted and thus removed from study by students. Political, institutional and market forces are shown likewise to have played an eminent role in shaping the composer’s career. The conventional approach to composer studies, which follow the trail of an inspired genius, are as inadequate as the view that the composer is a product of society. Emerging from the Italian operatic practice of the ‘stagione’, Cherubini was praised in Paris in the 1790s for his ‘talent’, and he took steps to collaborate with fellow composers as a state employee, as well as founding a publishing firm and other independent activities. As a social character, I show how Cherubini’s career foreshadows the vicissitudes of the composer-professor, which was to become the standard career path in the twentieth century.