Sanja Perovic’s chapter treats one of the most significant events in French history and an unprecedented period in theatre history. While the Revolution is often overlooked as a ‘dead period’ in French theatre, Perovic describes the scale and ambition of this extraordinary period. Never before had so many newcomers been able to forge successful careers as writers, actors and directors. Artistic innovation peaked, as revolutionary performance was more akin to what today is termed performance art, than to the kind of repertory theatre that preceded or followed it. Covering some of the major events, influential figures and key texts of this extremely fertile period, Perovic shows how theatre addressed the questions key to revolutionary culture: who is the audience? Where is it located? Who speaks on its behalf, and in what (theatrical, artistic) language? She concludes by contrasting two utopian works – Louis Beffroy de Reigny’s Nicodème dans la lune, ou la révolution pacifique (Nicodème Goes to the Moon, or the Peaceful Revolution, 1790) and Sylvain Maréchal’s Le Jugement dernier des rois (The Last Judgement of Kings, 1793) – with Beaumarchais’ La Mère coupable (The Guilty Mother, 1792), an altogether more sombre assessment of the effects of revolution.

In his Négligent (1692), Charles Dufresny has an aspiring playwright exclaim: ‘Molière has spoiled the theatre all right. Follow his example and immediately critics cry out that you pilfered his work; deviate from it in the slightest, and they complain that you are not staying close enough to Molière!’ – an ironic but fitting encapsulation of the ‘post-moliéresque’ era, when authors, facing increasingly challenging conditions, still somehow managed to reinvent comedy. The growing aura of commedia dell’arte and opera influenced productions of the newly formed Théâtre-Français, which for almost twenty years struggled in the shadow of the hugely successful Théâtre-Italien, then allowed to stage plays partly in French. When the latter was shut down by royal decree in 1697, the taste for ‘irregular’ comedy remained dominant, ultimately leading to the emergence of a new venue – the fairgrounds – and a new genre: the opéra-comique. Contrary to a long-standing negative vision, the Fin de Règne (1680–1715), with dramatists like Dancourt, Dufresny, Regnard and Lesage, was an apex of comedic innovation that never forgot or betrayed what Molière had accomplished.

With quotations from Phiip Gossett, Rebecca Harris-Warrick and Tom Christensen, the argument is reiterated for an ‘integrative model for French opera’ that includes opera with spoken dialogue. The importance of the independent, commercial theatre and the cultural value it commanded in Paris are summarised. Knowledge of French popular opera is demonstrable elsewhere, with London the obvious example shown in research by Vanessa Rogers and Erica Levenson. The nature of John Gay’s musical integrations in The Beggar’s Opera is compared with Paris practice and with Brecht’s in Die Dreigroschenoper. Key discoveries in the book are reviewed, especially the ‘new’ manuscript for La Chercheuse d’esprit. Opéra-comique research by Thomas Betzwieser and Ruth Müller is summarised and related to the current project, ending with further quotations from Tom Sutcliffe, Thomas Bauman and Alfred Roller.

While it is acknowledged that by 1879 Carmen was a global phenomenon, this chapter examines its reception in the French provinces, revealing the contributing factors which brought it back to the Opéra-Comique in 1883. The picture revealed by the work’s reception in the wake of Bizet’s untimely death, in Brussels, Lyon, Toulouse, Marseilles, Lille and Bordeaux is complex; the relationship of individual provinces with the centre, Bizet hagiography (or lack of), concerns of genre and the perennity of opéra-comique, the difficulty of the score along with its performers are all debates which contribute to a growing critical mass brought to bear upon Léon Carvalho in Paris. In addition, Galli-Marié is revealed as instrumental in the revival of the work, not only through her lobbying of the principal actors, but also through her touring activities. Thus the diverse and evolving French opinions of Bizet’s Carmen, formulated over a period of four years in parallel to the work’s international reputation, are analysed for the first time, revealing national pressures which brought Carmen ‘home’ in 1883.

Why a transnational history of Carmen? Because Carmen is intrinsically born of – and about –migration and linguistic fluidity, and because Bizet’s opera has been transcended by the myth or symbol of Carmen, taken to mean many things in multiple contexts. This chapter lays the foundations for the rest of the book by highlighting the main sources – Mérimée’s novella, the opera libretto, its first stagings and scores – as well as challenging the precepts of a transnational history of opera, and attempts to weave the individual chapters together, draw out overlapping themes, challenge expected narratives, point up contradictions. In short, whether in relation to genre, singers or binary oppositions of geography, identity, morality and progress, the chapter outlines the main debates addressed and synthesises the kaleidoscopic nature of the findings of all contributors. From Spanish gypsies to French Hispanomania in music and dance, from Parisian reception to transnationalism in opera studies, from Parisian opéra-comique to international hybrid spectacle, this chapter signals the issues that are omnipresent in the performance and reception of Carmen at home and abroad.

Following its premiere and two revivals (in 1883 and 1890), Carmen was given a fresh staging by the director of the new third Salle Favart, Albert Carré. Following the fatal and tragic fire of 1887, Carré’s mandate in the new theatre was to alternate works from the repertoire with world premieres. Thus Carmen and Manon inaugurated the new season (December 1898). By way of research, Carré journeyed to Spain, to Madrid, Seville and Grenada, accompagnied by the Opéra-Comique’s costume designer Charles Bianchini. The scenery, designed by Lucien Jusseaume, was also the fruit of the documents brought back by Carré in order to better portray the atmosphere of Mérimée’s novella. Carré’s production then held the Opéra-Comique stage, with only small modifications until c. 1972. Nevertheless, the 1875 production was performed in the provinces and abroad, most notably in French colonies in North Africa by the ‘Tournées d’Orient’ (1910–1920). This chapter demonstrates, therefore, how the two productions – both the original and Carré’s 1898 staging – rubbed shoulders over a long period, presenting co-existing images of Carmen: one, more dated, with scenery inspired by multiple sources; the other, more modern, where the protagonist confirms a model of modern woman.