Rising Stars: Added Airs as a Strategy for Singers’ Self-Promotion
Résumé
The practice of adding airs to the repertoire of the Académie royale de musique is documented over a period of about two decades, between the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. This paper aims to deepen our knowledge of this practice by highlighting the performers’ role in its establishment and consolidation, through the analysis of three major aspects: the relationship with Italian opera and with the Italianate fashion that took over the Parisian theatrical and musical world at the end of Louis XIV’s reign; the analysis of the repertoire of added airs and their place in operatic works; the under-standing of the way this practice served as a means of self-promotion and distinction for the singers within the troupe.
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