How to Make Wagner Normal: Lohengrin's ‘tour de France’ of 1891–92

Abstract

AbstractThe traditional story reception historians tell of Wagner in France is really a centralist story about Wagner in Paris. This article reverses the direction in light of the fact that seven French regional towns presented Lohengrin on publicly funded stages in 1891 before the directors of the Paris Opéra dared follow suit. Since the work's ‘job’ in the regions was to prove to Paris that Wagner stagings did not necessarily bring rioting with them, the focus is more on previews than on the usual (and logical) reception material of reviews. In addition, via its multi-centre approach and a sideways glance at a parallel phenomenon – the reception of Victorien Sardou's Thermidor – the article integrates reception study into a broader-based cultural history rather than treating it in potentially more limited fashion as an approach in and of itself.