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‘Dans le palais du son, on fait de la farine’: Performing at the Opéra during the 1870 Siege of Paris

The period of the 1870 siege of Paris has often been dismissed as a musical vacuum; few new works were written, and many of the capital’s theatres closed. But as the war persisted, initial objections to entertainment were overridden by a desire to escape the tedium of life under siege. In response, the artists of the Opéra formed a cooperative to present a series of soirées musicales. The hitherto neglected archives for these concerts offer a fascinating insight not only into the difficulties faced by musicians, but also into the ideological and aesthetic debates that preoccupied the musical culture of Paris in this time of political crisis. Central to these debates was the prominence of the enemy’s music in the concert programmes: investigation of this repertory’s reception reveals the complex nature of French attitudes to German culture during this period. But the unique performing conditions imposed by the siege provoked as much discussion as the chosen repertory. The Opéra and its audience were forced to adapt to the absence of costumes, décor, and lighting—a compromise that would bring with it intriguing aesthetic consequences.