Degas – Ballet Scene from ‘Robert le Diable’

The grand opéra, as understood in 19th century France, is a very specific form that played a major role in the evolution of opera but many of the works composed in that form (essentially exclusively for L’Opéra de Paris, though it goes through several name changes in the period which is a bit confusing) are now not well known and rarely performed.  I have been rootling around in this territory for a while now and I thought it might be fun to write a sort of general survey with links to reviews of relevant video and audio recordings. Continue reading →