Cardiff University | Prifysgol Caerdydd ORCA
Online Research @ Cardiff 
WelshClear Cookie - decide language by browser settings

'Thais': adaptation, degeneration and intermediality

Rowden, Clair Sophie ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0148-7864 2014. 'Thais': adaptation, degeneration and intermediality. Dix-Neuf 18 (2) , pp. 134-149. 10.1179/1478731814Z.00000000049

Full text not available from this repository.

Abstract

This article examines several forms of intermedial adaptation arising from the creative and reception processes of the opera Thaïs, premièred at the Paris Opéra in March 1894. With a libretto by Louis Gallet and a score by Jules Massenet, the opera was based on the 1890 novel by Anatole France. Written in an age of Symbolist and post-Wagnerian aesthetics, the opera used innovative orchestral interludes to capture the philosophical tenets of the novel, and, in a social and medical climate preoccupied with decadence and degeneration, it depicted Thaïs as a mystical hysteric. Press reception of the opera in caricatural and parodical forms treated these and other reception issues via temporal and geographical re-contextualizations of the opera’s story, producing complex intertextual discourses and meta-discourses. Within these intermedial processes, each version of the Thaïs story used and adapted the conventions of the previous genre to fit the new, thereby creating a network of narratives in an exploration and understanding of communication and meaning, convention and genre.

Item Type: Article
Date Type: Published Online
Status: Published
Schools: Music
Subjects: M Music and Books on Music > ML Literature of music
Uncontrolled Keywords: Anatole France, Louis Gallet, Jules Massenet, Jean-Martin Charcot, libretto, opera, adaptation, intermediality, parody, hysteria
Publisher: Maney Publishing
Last Modified: 28 Oct 2022 09:03
URI: https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/73102

Actions (repository staff only)

Edit Item Edit Item