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The most important innovation
in Opéra during the Revolution was
the realization of a state-supported system: subsidized Opéra.
Among popular implementations of subsidized Opéra
was the new policy on seating: first come, first served.
Subsidization had other
benefits: tickets no longer cost an arm and a leg; now everyone
could afford to go to the theatre or the Opéra.
Ticket prices were lowest during the Revolution, and though they
never reached their pre-revolutionary heights again, they did climb
gradually. The average Jeanne or Jacques could (especially during
the Revolution) walk in a theatre, pay for a theatre ticket well
within his or her means, and sit in any open seat he or she desired.
Yet, why would the working
man desire to attend the theatre or the Opéra,
if the performance would not interest him? The working man wouldn't
go to the theatre if it didn't interest him. In the politically
charged times,
new pieces, with political overtones debuted (for more information
on political Opéra,
please go to my Opéra
and Politics page), so as to draw in the audiences that craved
such performances. The public craved role models from the present
day, not the oppressive feudal past, "as the theatre of the
Revolution showed by the numerous plays and sketches commemorating
contemporary historical figures" (Bryson
114)
"The Revolution
doubly 'legitimized' the theatre: first legally, by declaring actors
to be citizens in full posession of civil rights and by abolishing
all priviledge in matter of repetoiry (theatres were henceforth
free to perform any theatrical genre, any play they wished); second,
morally, in that the revolutionaries saw the theatre as an extraordinary
pedagogical tool in forming a new people, teaching them the ideals
of the Revolution through the pleasures of the stage. ... both historians
and contemporary eyewitnesses display a mixture of fascination and
annoyance, even disgust, at the amazing spread of theatricality
during the revolutionary period." (Bryson
114-115) The Revolution was all about freedom. In the case of theatre
and Opéra, the Revolution freed
the expression of the people. The proliferation of theatricality
spoken of is merely the effect of the freedom given to artists (by
the Revolution).
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