Table Of ContentB a c k s t a ge at t he R e v o l u t i on
HOW THE ROYAL PARIS OPERA SURVIVED
THE END OF THE OLD REGIME
Victoria Johnson
The University of Chicago Press Chicago and London
VICTORIA JOHNSON is assistant professor of organizational studies at the TO MY FAMILIES
University of Michigan.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2008 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 2008
Printed in the United States of America
16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 12345
isBN-13:978-0-226-40195-9 (cloth)
ISBN-IO: 0-226-40195-2 (cloth)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Johnson, Victoria, 1969-
Backstage at the revolution: how the royal Paris Opera survived the end of the old
regime /VictoriaJohnson.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN-13:978-0-226-40195-9 (cloth: alk. paper)
ISBN-IO: 0-226-40195-2 (cloth: alk. paper)
1. Opera de Paris—History—17th century. 2. Opera de Paris—History—
18th century. 3. Opera—France—Paris—17th century. 4 Opera—France—
Paris—18th century. I. Title.
ML1727.8.P2J64 2008
792.50944'365i—dc22
2008010502
© The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the Ameri
can National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed
Library Materials, ANSI 239.48-1992.
Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi
INTRODUCTION 1
i The Past in the Present 15
Foundings
Trajectories
2 The Storming of the Opera 37
On the Eve of Revolution
The Struggle for the Opera
3 The Perpetuation of Privilege 61
The City and the Theaters
The Victory of Privilege
4 Orpheus on the Seine 83
Opening Night at the Palais-Royal
The Founding of the Paris Opera
5 An Academy for Opera 103
Why an Academy?
TheHybridOpera
6 Opera deluxe 119
The Second Coming of the Paris Opera
Luxurious Lully
7 The Phantom Founders 148 Illustrations
Luxury and Privilege at the Opera after Perrin and Lully
The War of Luxury and Simplicity
CONCLUSION: SURVIVING REVOLUTION 184
POSTSCRIPT 195
Notes 205
Bibliography 249
Index 269
PLATES following page 112
1 Louis XIV as the Rising Sun in the Ballet de la Nuit (1653)
2 Costume of a Fury for Caproli's Les Noces de Pelee et de Thetis (1654)
3 Thetis in her marine chariot for Lully's Alceste (1674)
4 Costume of Pluto for Lully's Proserpine (1680)
5 Costume for Medee in Salomon's Medee et Jason (revival of 1749)
6 Costume for a demon
7 Palace of Venus for Mondonville's Fetes de Paphos (1758)
8 Set for Rameau's les Paladins (1760)
FIGURES
1 The Opera House at the Porte Saint-Martin 42
2 Plan of the Theatre de la Porte Saint-Martin 43
3 Organization chart for a proposed restructuring
of the Paris Opera 45
4 Denis-Pierrerjean Papillon de la Ferte 46
5 Crowd closing down the Opera on July 12,1789 54
6 Jean-Baptiste Lully 86
7 The Palais-Royal 88
8 Set for Lully's Atys (1676) 90
9 View of the Bel-Air tennis court in the Rue de Vaugirard 101 Acknowledgments
10 SetdesignbyTorelliforSacrati'sLajintapazza(i645) 122
11 Stage machinery for Lully's JSelle'rophon (1679) and Perse'e (1682) 138
12 Set design for Lully's Phae'ton (1683) 139
13 Plan for the chariot of Apollo 140
14 Winged monster 140
15 Monster's mouth 141
16 Goddess in clouds 141
17 Place Louis-le-Grand in Paris (Place Vendome) 165
18 Theatre de la Foire Saint-Laurent 166
First, the voices: I thank them for the pleasure they have given.
19 Stage machinery 181
I could not have researched or written this book without the generous
financial support granted me by a number of institutions. At Columbia
University, I received a Paul Lazarsfeld Fellowship from the Department
of Sociology, a dissertation research fellowship from the* Georges Lurcy
Fund, a Lindt Fellowship, and dissertation completion support from the
Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy. Bryn Mawr College
provided financial aid in support of a summer program in Avignon so that
I could improve my French sufficiently to tackle eighteenth-century ar
chives. My research in Paris was further supported by a Dorothy Leet Re
search Fellowship from the Association Francaise des Femmes Diplomees
des Universites and by a Chateaubriand Fellowship. Upon my return, the
Social Science Research Council provided financial support through its
program on "The Corporation as a Social Institution" as well as through
its program on "The Arts and Society." At the University of Michigan, I
received publication support for this book from the Office of the Vice
President for Research and the Dean's Office in the College of Literature,
Science, and the Arts. I extend my heartfelt thanks to these institutions
for making this project possible. And I must also thank John Herbert, for
merly of the law firm Shearman & Sterling, for keeping my summer job
open every year I needed it.
My dissertation committee at Columbia brought together four won
derful sociologists who know and love France. David Stark, who served as
my chair, is a teacher with a gift for bringing out the best in his students; I
thank him for his inspiration and for his continued mentorship. Priscilla
xii Acknowledgments Acknowledgments xiii
Ferguson was a dedicated and thoughtful advisor who improved my work Archives—and archivists—exercise enormous power over historical
by means of her careful critique as well as through her expertise on Paris. researchers. I had the good fortune to be doing much of my work at the
Charles Tilly taught me invaluable coping strategies when I thought I stunning Bibliotheque de 1'Opera, housed in the Palais Gamier, where the
might literally drown in the Old Regime archives, never to be heard from archivists were both friendly and knowledgeable. Early in my research at
again; he also provided incisive comments on my chapter drafts, always the Opera, Jean-Pierre Blanche took note of what I was studying and qui
in his trademark rapid-fire e-mail responses. Harrison White taught me to etly steered me to a trove of useful documents. His colleagues Philippe
think hard about what organizations do to and for art—and vice versa— Cousin, Jean-Francois Tremouille, and Michel Tremouille answered my
first when I was his teaching assistant for a course on the sociology of art, endless questions about the collections patiently and expertly, and with
and then as his advisee. These four scholars have my deepest gratitude for their wisecracking good humor they lightened the tedium of long days
sharing their time, ideas, and experience with me during the years I was in the archives. I am also grateful to several especially helpful archivists
working on this project. at some of the other collections in which I was working: at tlje Archives
Nationales, I benefited from the kind assistance of Luc Requier, and at
Other faculty, both at Columbia and beyond, have likewise given me
the Comedie-Francaise, from that of Jacqueline Razgonnikoff and Joel
very helpful advice and feedback at various points along the way, espe
Huthwohl.
cially Peter Bearman, Dalton Conley, Mustafa Emirbayer, Tom Ertman,
Neil Fligstein, Mauro Guillen, Doug Guthrie, Heather Haveman, Allan Sil This project has its roots in questions I began to think about as an un
ver, and Art Stinchcombe. I thank each of them for taking the time out of dergraduate at Yale, and I am grateful to my professors Susan Neiman,
very busy lives—in some cases repeatedly—to speak with me and to read Georgia Warnke, and "Herr Stern" for encouraging these questions and
my work. for their dedication to undergraduate teaching. Neil Brenner was an in
comparable conversation partner as I first started wondering about the re
Before, during, and after my two years in the Paris archives, many
lations between musical institutions and their social contexts; I am pretty
scholars generously shared their expertise on French cultural and musi
sure that had I not known Neil, I would not have ended up writing this
cal history. Christophe Prochasson offered useful advice about historical
book. Other friends came into my life along the way: Dino Valaoritis and
research in France as I first began to articulate the idea for this project. The
Clare Johnson offered me a haven from grad school on the countless eve
musicologists Jane Fulcher and the late Beth Bartlet, both experts on the
nings I hopped the 1 train to spend time with them on the Upper West Side;
Paris Opera, enthusiastically encouraged my sociological foray into the
Joyce Robbins was my comrade-in-arms in the Ph.D. program; and Nitsan
study of musical institutions, and their work has been an inspiration to
Chorev provided encouragement and advice whenever I asked (which was
me throughout this project. Miranda Spieler showed me the lay of the land
often). Duncan Watts set the best example of cheerful hard work I had ever
at the Bibliotheque Nationals and the Archives Nationales. David Chaillou
encountered; Michele Kofman showed me new ways to approach my writ
shared his research on the Paris Opera under Napoleon, since published
ing that I will never abandon; and "Spanky" brightened things up with his
by Fayard. Ariane Ducrot very kindly gave me access to her unpublished
bizarrely and delightfully constant joie de vivre. I will be eternally grate
1961 thesis on Lully's role in the founding of the Paris Opera. Greg Brown
ful to Serban Iorga for dashing to the store to fetch a fresh printer car
helped with several queries on the history of eighteenth-century French
tridge during the last-minute printing of my dissertation before I jumped
theater.
in a rental car to drive to Ann Arbor, where I was starting a postdoctoral
Pierre Bourdieu was one of the main reasons I settled on a Parisian dis
fellowship.
sertation topic, not to mention a Ph.D. in sociology. He was exceedingly
gracious when I arrived in Paris, providing office space at the College de I had my doubts about leaving Manhattan for a small midwestern
France, sponsoring a Chateaubriand Fellowship for my second year, and town, but they have all been laid to rest. The University of Michigan has
somehow finding time to discuss chapter drafts with me. Bourdieu's as proved to be a profoundly supportive and collegial intellectual commu
sistants Marie-Christine Riviere and Rosine Christin and his students nity. I would like to thank Janet Weiss for helping create a postdoctoral
Frederic Lebaron and Franck Poupeau also welcomed me warmly into the fellowship, the Society of Scholars, that permitted a sociologist of art
research group. working on French opera in the Old Regime to experience life in a business
xiv Acknowledgments Acknowledgments xv
school, and I also thank Michael Jensen for persuading me that it would a second one along the way. John and Carol Merriman took me on my first
be a good fit. The faculty and doctoral students of the Management and trip to France; we arrived in Paris in time to watch hundreds of thousands
Organizations Department at the Ross School of Business welcomed me celebrating the bicentennial of the French Revolution. On that trip, I fell
warmly into their midst. What I learned as an instructor in that depart not only for a country but also for a family; John and Carol, and their
ment (thank you, Lance!) set me on a happy path of research and teaching children Laura and Christopher, have been a central part of my life ever
that I might never have discovered otherwise. And I thank Wayne Baker since. It is a pleasant accident of fate that John is the most devoted fan of
and Jane Dutton for mentoring me with such generosity and dedication. Michigan—the university and the football team—I have ever met.
.From my postdoctoral fellowship I moved to the Organizational Stud It seems a bit unfair that I should get a second family when my first is
ies Program at the University of Michigan, where I have found a nurtur so wonderful. I am blessed with three lovely sisters, Betsy Sheldon, Eliza
ing and rewarding professional life. The program's director, Rick Price, beth Kostova, and Jessica Honigberg. Betsy makes me laugh dangerously
has facilitated the emergence of a vibrant community for faculty and hard; Elizabeth is a model of dedication to writing and to family; and Jes
undergraduate learning, and I thank him for his vision and leadership. sica is eloquent and touching through painting, writing, and music. They
I also thank him for the many hours we have spent in conversation and have given me so much during the writing of this book; it is hard to know
for his moral and departmental support as I completed this book. I learn how to thank them. Steve Honigberg and Georgi Rostov have excelled in
something every time I am in the same room with him. My colleague Ja their acquired roles as my older brothers, behaving with as much protec-
son Owen-Smith has a similar effect on me, and I thank him for reading tiveness as any real brother would. My uncles Hugh Stephens and Paul
and discussing chapter and article drafts with me at the drop of a hat. I Johnson have been essential to the writing of this book—Uncle Hugh by
would also like to thank Denise Yekulis for all her expert and cheerful as performing a labor of love that involved a transatlantic journey, and Unc
sistance as I completed this book. The Organizational Studies Program by teaching me, long ago, to love opera, as well as by helping me through
would not be the extraordinary place it is without its staff, and I thank graduate school and taking an unflagging interest in my progress. My fa
them all for what they do every day to make it such a wonderful place to ther, David, and my mother, Eleanor, taught me their tastes and values,
work. I also thank my students in the program, whose curiosity, sense of and at the same time they gave me the will and the tools to think critically
fun, and drive to improve themselves and the world make my job a deeply about these tastes and values. In other words, they made me a sociologist.
fulfilling one. For this, my deepest thanks.
Other colleagues and friends at Michigan have provided advice, in
sight, and/or moral support as I worked on this book as well. The best
meals I've had in this town have been cooked by Meadow Linder, not just
because she is gifted in the kitchen but because they are accompanied by
her wry wit and her loving friendship. Andy Hoffman, whose work on en-
vironmentalism I had already admired in graduate school, has become a
treasured friend as well as a professional role model. Michael Jensen has
been by turns "maximally annoying" (his own apt phrase) and extremely
helpful.
My editor at the University of Chicago Press, Doug Mitchell, under
stood the aim of this book instantly. It has been a privilege to work with
him and with his assistant Tim McGovern and a pleasure to be on the re
ceiving end of their entertafning and even lyrical e-mails. I would also like
to thank the scholars who served as reviewers of this book for their helpful
comments and Mark Reschke for his hard work and eagle eye.
I come now to my families—"families" because I managed to acquire
Introduction
The French Revolution was perhaps the most concentrated effort at so
cial reinvention in history. Revolutionaries painstakingly dismantled or
restructured core institutions of French society from the monarchy to
the schools. Not long after the storming of the Bastille, revolutionary ef
fervescence gave way to bitter contestation about which institutions de
served complete abolition and which simply required restructuring. The
Paris Opera, royal institution par excellence, found itself in the eye of the
reformers' storm as early as the fall of 1789. The Opera's long association
with the court, its special privileges, and the splendor of its performances
made it a lightning rod for charges of tyranny and waste. In 1791, however,
Revolutionary officials spared and even protected the Paris Opera.
The Opera was not, of course, the only privileged Old Regime institu
tion to survive the reforming zeal of the early Revolutionaries. But the
Opera's treatment in the first few years of the French Revolution ran di
rectly counter to the egalitarian, free-market legislation that triggered
a sweeping transformation of the theatrical field beginning in 1791. As
many powerful Revolutionaries worked feverishly to eradicate privilege
of all kinds, privilege in the theatrical field came under concentrated fire
from playwrights, librettists, entrepreneurs, and actors, and the National
Assembly responded with the radical legislation known as the "Liberty of
the Theaters." Yet when Parisian officials turned to the Opera, by far the
most privileged of Old Regime theaters at the outbreak of the Revolution,
they voted to maintain its privileged status by new means. Why?
This puzzling moment in the history of a formal organization is the
starting point for this book. How did the Paris Opera, widely viewed as the
2 Introduction Introduction 3
most despotic of French cultural institutions, survive the early Revolu of tyranny and conspiracy, and they were duly denounced by a counter
tionaries' intense effort to eradicate despotism in all its forms? The search tenor from the chorus at the next general assembly of Opera staff.
for an answer to this question will take us back to the Opera's founding Regardless of these machinations, the ultimate decision about who
in 1669 as a hybrid of two seventeenth-century organizational forms—the would run this formerly royal institution, how it should be run, and in
public theater and the royal academy—and to the emergence of the new deed whether anyone should be allowed to run it at all, actually lay in the
genre of French opera as a hybrid of seventeenth-century artistic genres. hands of the Paris municipal government, which had persuaded Louis
The eighteenth-century reproduction of one of the Opera's most potent XVI to cede the Opera to the city in April 1790. The city council did not
identities—that of an organization unique in Europe presenting works of make a decision until early 1791, but after hours of discussion devoted
unparalleled visual and musical luxury—was to lead to both attack and solely to the question of the Opera, the council members finally moved to
preservation in the early Revolution. preserve the Opera from bankruptcy or outright destruction by convert
ing it from a royally administered theater into a theatrical entreprise. The
The Opera's detractors argued that because it survived only through
restructured organization was to be administered by a partnership of two
unjust and wasteful subsidies and privileges, it should be thrown to the
entrepreneurs who would be supported in specified ways by the city gov
wolves of the free market. It would certainly collapse, they argued, and so
ernment. Both in the duration of their deliberations and in the content of
it should. Supporters of the Opera, on the other hand, argued that it em
their decisions, the Parisian politicians who controlled the Opera's fate in
ployed hundreds of Parisians, brought foreign visitors and their money
the early Revolution distinguished the Opera from all other French the
to France, and was the pride of the French nation. Opposed as they were,
aters.1 And in doing so, they reproduced the privileged status held by the
then, each of these points of view represented a reaction to the Opera's
Opera throughout the eighteenth century.
uniquely expensive performances, which were (as I will show in coming
chapters) the legacy of the theater's seventeenth-century founders. The ar The organizational scholars Paul DiMaggio and Walter Powell have
gument of this book, therefore, is that the key to the paradox of the Opera's suggested that in heavily institutionalized environments, organizational
Revolutionary experience lies not in the second half of the eighteenth cen change is most likely to take place in situations of institutional rupture:
tury or even in the dynamic of the Revolution itself—the phases in which "Fundamental change occurs under conditions in-which the social ar
historians generally look for the causes of Revolutionary events and pro rangements that have buttressed institutional regimes suddenly appear
cesses. It can be found, instead, in an organizational process begun more problematic." * Early Revolutionaries were engaged in an active and suc
than a century earlier. cessful effort to render "problematic" the social arrangements of Old Re
! gime France, and this effort gave powerful ammunition to the Opera's
I critics/Nevertheless, the Opera's privileged status survived the onslaught
REVOLUTION GOES TO'THE OPERA
intact. Behind this survival lay a conception of the Paris Opera that had
long since been institutionalized among its courtly supporters and that
In 1789, the Opera's most vulnerable point of attack was its royal monop
was subsequently perpetuated among enough Parisian politicians in the
oly, which flagrantly controverted the revolutionary spirit of the day, but
early Revolution to carry the day. The understanding of the Paris Opera
this was only the most obvious of its transgressions. The strict adminis
shared by its supporters on the eve of the Revolution was best summed
trative and artistic hierarchy at the Opera had for decades nurtured in
up by the court official under whose jurisdiction the administration of
ternal grumblings, which erupted in full force soon after the Revolution
the Opera fell. "In its essence," wrote Papillon de la Ferte, the intendant des
itself. These internal troubles only compounded the danger presented by
Menus-Plaisirs, "the Opera is a very expensive theater, regardless of any
external attacks already being launched by long-suffering subordinate
economizing one might bring to it, by virtue of the fact that it unites all
theaters, who were tired of paying fines and dues into the Opera's coffers.
the talents capable of flattering the ear and engaging the sight, with mag
Taking advantage of the new rhetoric of reform, the Opera's principal
nificence, luxury, freshness, and the most painstaking execution."' Fur
ar-tists denounced the tyranny of their court-based superiors and met se
thermore, Papillon argued, the Opera is alone among theaters in facing
cretly in late 1789 to plan a takeover. However, in a familiar Revolutionary
such exorbitant expenses: "One must also point out that the staging of an
dynamic, these disgruntled principals became the next in line for charges
4 Introduction Introduction 5
opera is unlike that of any work at any other theater One cannot stage a rangement for the Opera. But it was not only its supporters who felt it was
new opera without considerable expenses of every nature."4 Although the an institution unmatched by any other. The power of the conception of the
Opera was uniquely expensive, it was also held by many to be unique in Paris Opera as "unique" is underscored by the fact that it was shared by
its contribution to French culture, and it was for this latter quality that it even the most vocal of its Revolutionary critics. What the Opera's critics
was treasured by its supporters as the Old Regime waned. In 1790 the play found unique about this organization, however, was the degree of its des
wright Nicolas-Etienne Framery sarcastically characterized this senti potism. On April 29,1790, the playwright Marie-Joseph Chenier declared
ment, which he most decidedly did not share, this way: "The Arkreveredby to the Cordeliers district that "among the astonishing number of vexa
the Jews was not more sacred than the Opera in the eyes of the minister."s tious absurdities that existed before the revolution in this land of privi
On August 17,1791, a representative of the Revolutionary government of leges, one of the most ridiculous, without doubt, was the contribution
Paris expressed an attitude toward the Opera similar to Papillon's when he that all the theaters of Paris, the Comedie-Francaise excepted, paid to
proposed to his assembled fellows that "one could establish an axiom: no the Opera for the right to sing or dance." " And with equal indignation, the
luxury and magnificence, no Opera."6 The representative, a doctor at the playwright Framery wrote that "the imagination itself recoils before the
Faculty of Medicine named Jean-Jacques Leroux, offered his new "axiom" extent... [of] the rights accorded to this theater. They are such that it has
as a rationale for continuing the municipality's privileged financial and been impossible for speculators, even the most greedy, to exercise them
legal treatment of the Paris Opera. Stripped of its signature extravagance, all. From one end of the kingdom to the other, every theater is the tribu
Leroux argued, the Opera would simply lose its identity: "Imagine Armide, tary, the vassal of the Opera." " Critics and supporters alike thus agreed
Iphigenie, Didon, ornamented with superb ballets and staged with care by that the Opera differed from every other theater in France or, for some, in
the best artists, in the middle of a grand assembly of spectators; or see the world. What they did not agree upon was whether the Opera could sur
them, deprived of their danc.es, sung by their understudies, in a deserted vive if its privileges were abolished. Opponents of the Opera's continued
hall. You would hardly be able to recognize them as the masterpieces they domination of the French theaters believed that the abolition of privilege
are."7 Without special support from the city, Leroux concluded, the Op was far more important than the preservation of luxurious performances.
era's unique contribution to French cultural life would be lost. The Opera's supporters, on the other hand, believed that the preservation
Leroux persuaded his fellow Parisian representatives that his concerns of privilege, in some form or other, would be necessary if the Opera were
were valid. The deputies voted to turn the Opera over to a pair of entrepre to retain the features they understood as essential to its identity. Despite
neurs "under the surveillance of the corps municipal."B The contract signed their fundamental differences, however, both groups understood the Op
onMarch 8,1792, between the city of Paris and the entrepreneurs contained era to be a unique institution in the world of French theater.
special provisions designed to protect the Opera from the new, more chal
Revolutionary discourse and action vis-a-vis the Opera in the early
lenging conditions it faced after the abolition of its monopoly early in 1791.
1790s was thus guided by an institutionalized organizational identity—
The city council members had decided that "the Opera, deprived of dues
one combining "uniqueness" and "luxury"—acquired at some point prior
from the other theaters, [and] lacking the aid that contributed to its splen
to the Revolution. An adequate explanation of the Opera's experience in
dor, would not be able to survive, even under the administration of private
the early Revolution depends, therefore, on pinpointing the emergence
entrepreneurs" without special aid.9 Since the entrepreneurs felt that they
of this organizational identity and on unpacking the process of institu
would have a better chance at making a successful business of the Opera
tionalization and reproduction that linked this emergent phase to the
if it were not located so far from the center of town, the city agreed to sub
Revolutionary.years. To do this, it turns out, we must return to the Opera's
stitute for its original offer of financial assistance the use of prime real
very founding, accomplished in 1669 thanks to the initiative of one Pierre
estate in the wealthy, central Palais-Royal district for the construction of
Perrin. Though musicologists have all but ignored Perrin in favor of his
a new opera house.10
immediate successor, the celebrated composer Jean-Baptiste Lully, it was,
Following Leroux's argument that the Opera was unique, worthy of as I will argue in this book, actually in no small part due to an initiative
saving, and inherently more costly than any other theater, the Corps mu of Perrin's that the Paris Opera of 1789 owed its identity as an organization
nicipal of the Paris government thus voted for a special administrative ar- unique in France. In 1666, Perrin proposed the founding of a royal acad-
