Description

Étienne Destranges, the Nantes music critic and Wagnerian, traced five centuries of the city’s stage: the mystery plays of the fifteenth century, the strolling companies, the building of the Grand-Théâtre by Crucy and its burning in 1796, then season after season of opera and opéra-comique, with the casts, directors, subsidies and quarrels of each year, down to the Variétés and the Renaissance. This revised and enlarged edition, published in Paris and Nantes in 1902, carries seven engravings, three theatre plans and a portrait of the author. This is a faithful print-on-demand facsimile of the 1902 edition, reproduced in full from a library copy. The historical text is reproduced without modification; only the format, margins and legibility have been reset for modern printing.