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In his foreword to Arnold Mortier's work "
The Parisian evenings of 1883 ", Gounod identifies
one of the most dangerous tendencies of artistic
effort in "search of effects ", adding " that the
preoccupation for effects is nothing else than a
lack of faith in truth, a cowardice of
incredulity.... When you'll see an artist worried
about the impact his work will have, consider as
somebody who has more love for his person than for
his art: he's a glorious! ". In his
"Mémoires"", considering the public he adds:
"The theater audience is a dynamometer: it does not
have to know of the value of a work from a taste
point of view; it measures only the passionate
power and degree of emotion of it, thus making it
clearly a dramatic work, an expression of what
happens in the personal or collective human soul.
The result is that audience and author are mutually
called to artisticly educate one another: the
audience, by being for the author the criterion and
penalty of Truth; the author, by introducing the
audience to elements and conditions of Beauty
".
Below are listed the operas of Gounod in
chronological order. Click the button "CARD" and
you will reach a complete description of the
selected opera.
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