{"id":83995,"date":"2016-05-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-05-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/article\/the-doctor-who-cured-the-opera\/"},"modified":"2024-03-22T08:56:36","modified_gmt":"2024-03-22T12:56:36","slug":"the-doctor-who-cured-the-opera","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/article\/the-doctor-who-cured-the-opera\/","title":{"rendered":"The doctor who cured the Op\u00e9ra"},"content":{"rendered":"
. . . nobody in our time had such a nose for a profit,\u00a0<\/em>nor such greyhound speed at running it down.<\/em> Winning the war, they say, is easier than winning the peace. Although the Acad\u00e9mie Royale de Musique\u2014the Paris Op\u00e9ra\u2014somehow survived the French Revolution and its bloody aftermath, the first years of the Bourbon Restoration posed a different type of threat. The Op\u00e9ra was one of France\u2019s most famous institutions, but generations of financial mismanagement and institutional politicking had produced their usual consequences. It was, in Ernest Newman\u2019s phrase, \u201choary with iniquities, cynical with long experiences of human cupidity and folly.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\u2014M\u00e9moires, Philar\u00e8te chasles<\/p>\n