The Opera Garnier as a French “Festspielhaus“? Wagner Reception in Sylvia (1876)

In 1876, the same year that the Richard Wagner Festival Theatre opened in Bayreuth, Sylvia was the first ballet to be performed in the Palais Garnier, which had reopened just one year earlier. The ballet, with choreography by Louis Mérante and music by Léo Delibes, is indeed modelled on Wagner's music dramas in many respects. This may initially come as a surprise in the context of the ballet genre, but on closer inspection it seems logical. The reception of Wagner made it possible to combine two things: ballet as a genuinely French genre with a musical language that was at the height of its time – that of Wagner. This kind of modern dance theatre was an ideal programme item for the newly opened Paris Opera House. The renewal of its own genre as a counterpart to Wagner's music drama in its own new theatre building was to a certain extent a necessity. This connection and how it manifests itself in Sylvia in terms of content, dance and music will be explored in detail in the paper. 

Juliane Pöche studied musicology, art history and historical musicology in Dresden and Hamburg, 2014–2015 she was research assistant at the University of Hamburg, 2015–2022 she was research assistant in the DFG project “Thomas Selle – Opera omnia“. In 2018, she received her PhD with the thesis “Thomas Selle's Music for Hamburg. Composing in an early modern metropolis“ and was awarded the Karl H. Ditze Prize the following year. In 2022, she received a research grant from the Gerda Henkel Foundation for a project on the relationship between music and choreography in the 19th century. 2022–2023 she was a guest researcher at the University of Basel. Since 2023, Juliane Pöche has been co-leading the German Research Foundation (DFG) project “Digitality in music edition: the open concept of work in the 17th century“.