David Charlton, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK

'Ashgate should be commended for their commitment to scholarship of distinction...' Music and Letters '... a volume of which no-one involved in opera of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries should remain unaware.' Current Musicology

• Contents: The romance and its cognates: narrative, irony and vraisemblance in early opéra-comique; Continuing polarities: Opera theory and opéra-comique; Orchestra and chorus at the Comédie-Italienne (Opéra-Comique), 1755-1799; The overture to Philidor’s Le Bûcheron (1763); ’Envoicing’ the orchestra: Enlightenment metaphors in theory and practice; ’Minuet-scenes’ in early opéra-comique; Motive and motif: Méhul before 1791; Motif and recollection in four operas of Dalayrac; The French theatrical origins of Fidelio; Storms, sacrifices: the ’Melodrama Model’ in Opera; Ossian, Le Sueur and opera; The dramaturgy of ’Grand Opéra’: some origins; On the nature of ’Grand Opera’; ’A maître d’orchestre... conducts’: new and old evidence on French practice; Index.

David Charlton, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK

'Ashgate should be commended for their commitment to scholarship of distinction...' Music and Letters '... a volume of which no-one involved in opera of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries should remain unaware.' Current Musicology

• Contents: The romance and its cognates: narrative, irony and vraisemblance in early opéra-comique; Continuing polarities: Opera theory and opéra-comique; Orchestra and chorus at the Comédie-Italienne (Opéra-Comique), 1755-1799; The overture to Philidor’s Le Bûcheron (1763); ’Envoicing’ the orchestra: Enlightenment metaphors in theory and practice; ’Minuet-scenes’ in early opéra-comique; Motive and motif: Méhul before 1791; Motif and recollection in four operas of Dalayrac; The French theatrical origins of Fidelio; Storms, sacrifices: the ’Melodrama Model’ in Opera; Ossian, Le Sueur and opera; The dramaturgy of ’Grand Opéra’: some origins; On the nature of ’Grand Opera’; ’A maître d’orchestre... conducts’: new and old evidence on French practice; Index.

David Charlton, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK

'Ashgate should be commended for their commitment to scholarship of distinction...' Music and Letters '... a volume of which no-one involved in opera of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries should remain unaware.' Current Musicology

• Contents: The romance and its cognates: narrative, irony and vraisemblance in early opéra-comique; Continuing polarities: Opera theory and opéra-comique; Orchestra and chorus at the Comédie-Italienne (Opéra-Comique), 1755-1799; The overture to Philidor’s Le Bûcheron (1763); ’Envoicing’ the orchestra: Enlightenment metaphors in theory and practice; ’Minuet-scenes’ in early opéra-comique; Motive and motif: Méhul before 1791; Motif and recollection in four operas of Dalayrac; The French theatrical origins of Fidelio; Storms, sacrifices: the ’Melodrama Model’ in Opera; Ossian, Le Sueur and opera; The dramaturgy of ’Grand Opéra’: some origins; On the nature of ’Grand Opera’; ’A maître d’orchestre... conducts’: new and old evidence on French practice; Index.