William J. Gibbons

In the wake of France’s defeat in the Franco Prussian War, the nation turned to the past in order to reconnect with its former glory. Musicians featured prominently in this effort, and the period around the turn of the twentieth century saw the development of an Operatic Museum, where the music of the past, as cultural artifacts, was performed alongside modern operas. The questions of which works were suitable for presentation and how they would be performed in this museum were critical in shaping narratives of the French musical past, present, and future. This dissertation focuses on the operas of Mozart, Gluck, and Rameau—three composers whose widely varying reception during this period provides a window onto the uses of eighteenth-century music in the formation of French cultural identity.