Esclarmonde
This chapter focuses on Massenet' Esclarmonde. It begins with a discussion of the meaning of Esclarmonde's veil. It then assesses the claim that the Esclarmonde libretto itself is Wagnerian. Esclarmonde came to be seen as a brief Wagnerian phase in Massenet's output, just as in La Navarraise he had dabbled in verismo, hoping to tap the vein of success mined by Mascagni, and in Cendrillon he had supposedly followed in the footsteps of Humperdinck's HÄnsel und Gretel. With recurring motifs teeming in and around small closed forms, Esclarmonde succeeded in alienating both Wagnerian progressives and conservative reviewers.
Keywords: Massenet, French opera, veil, Wagner, verismo, Esclarmonde
Oxford Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .