Paris during the time of phantom of the opera

France during the time of phantom of the opera

Oscar Gutierrez

It all started on 28 October 1873. The story goes something like this: a young piano player was burnt in the face in the fire of the rue Le Peletiers conservatory. His fiance, a ballerina at the Conservatory, lost her life in the fire. Inconsolable and disfigured, he sought refuge in the underground space below the Paris Opera House, which was then being built.

It governedFrancefrom 1870, when theSecond French Empirecollapsed, to 1940, when France's defeat byNazi Germanyled to theVichy France government.

The moderates became deeply divided over theDreyfus affair, and this allowed theRadicalsto eventually gain power from 1899 until the Great War. During this period, crises like the potential "Boulangist" coup d'tat in 1889, showed the fragility of the republic.

The end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century is often termed thebelle poque. Although associated with cultural innovations and popular amusements, France was nevertheless a nation divided internally on notions of religion, class, regionalisms and money, and on the international front France came sometimes to the brink of war with the other imperial powers, including Great Britain.

The French Third Republic - La Troisime Rpublique

Literaturepositivism

After the establishment of the Third Republic, it had coalesced into a unified system of thought known asPositivism, a term coined by the philosopherAuguste Comte.

Writers such asmile Zolaand artists like douard ManetandPierre-Auguste Renoirepitomized the spirit of Positivism.

Positivism survived as a movement until at least World War I, but beginning in the 1890s was challenged by a rival school of thought that saw the return of Romantic ideas. A number of artists came to disagree with the cold rationalism and logic of the Positivists, feeling that it ignored human emotions.

Literaturesymbolism

The so-called Symbolists included the poetsPaul VerlaineandStphane Mallarmand writers and philosophers includedPaul Bourget,Maurice Barres, andHenri Bergson.

Bourget denounced Positivist ideas and proclaimed that man's salvation did not come from science, but by the more traditional values of God, family, and country. He espoused what he called "integral nationalism" and that traditional institutions, reverence for one's ancestors, and the sacredness of the French soil were what needed to be taught and promoted.

art

Caf culture, cabarets, arcades (19th century covered malls),anarchism, the mixing of classes, the radicalization of art and artistic movements caused by the academicsalonsystem, a boisterous willingness to shock all this made for a stunning vibrancy. What is more, the dynamic debate in the visual arts is also repeated in the same period in music, dance, architecture and the novel. This is the birth ofModernism.

douard Manetrepresents for many critics the division between the 19th century and the modern period. His rediscovery of Spanish painting from the golden age, his willingness to show the unpainted canvas, his exploration of the forthright nude and his radical brush strokes are the first step toward Impressionism.

The Plum

The Reading

The Bugler

Carnations and Clematis in a Crystal Vase

art

Impressionismwould take theBarbizon schoolone further, rejecting once and for all a belabored style (and the use of mixed colors and black), for fragile transitive effects of light as captured outdoors in changing light.Claude Monetwith his cathedrals and haystacks,Pierre-Auguste Renoirwith both his early outdoor festivals and his later feathery style of ruddy nudes,Edgar Degaswith his dancers and bathers.

Claude Monet,Haystacks, (sunset)

Pierre-Auguste Renoir,Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette

At the Races

music

In the late 19th century, pioneers likeGeorges Bizet,Jules Massenet,Gabriel Faur,Maurice RavelandClaude Debussy revitalized French music. The last two had an enormous impact on 20th-century music - both in France and abroad - and influenced many major composers.Erik Satiewas also a very significant composer from that era. His music is difficult to classify but sounds surprisingly ahead of its time.

Science

France produced a large body of prominent scientists during the late 19th century such asLouis PasteurandMarcellin Berthelot.

economy

Urbanizationof the largest cities was well under way, and Paris was a leading world capital already. Smaller French towns and the country's many small villages, however, were impoverished and industrially backward.

Industrial development in France was rapid during the 19th century. Around the great cities, and in the north and in other areas which had natural resources readily available, large industries formed. Capital was available through banking services largely located, since the Revolution, in Paris. The large French population of the time supplied an available workforce.

paris

Paris became world famous for making consumerism a social priority and economic force, especially through its upscale arcades filled with luxury shops and its grand department stores. These were "dream machines" that set the world standard for consumption of fine products by the upper classes as well as the rising middle class.

The Grands Magasins Dufayel was a huge department store with inexpensive prices built in 1890 in the northern part of Paris, where it reached a very large new customer base in the working class. In a neighborhood with few public spaces, it provided a consumer version of the public square. It educated workers to approach shopping as an exciting social activity not just a routine exercise in obtaining necessities, just as the bourgeoisie did at the famous department stores in the central city.

Paris Exposition, view from ground level of the Eiffel tower with Parisians promenading