Ignazio Degotti Staging Luigi Cherubini. Making Visual Culture at the Théâtre Feydeau

My article investigates the never-explored relationship between Luigi Cherubini and the stage designer Ignazio Degotti. This partnership took place at the end of the 1790s in Paris when both artists were active at the Théâtre de Monsieur (re-named Feydeau after 1792). In my study, the connection between Cherubini and Degotti is explored on two levels. On one, I reconstruct how this relationship grew within a network of old and new Franco-Italian artistic friendships. Details on these connections are important for new biographical insights into both artists’ biographies, and they also give us a sense of a specific location in Paris (the Poissonière neighbourhood) where a community of theatrical people lived, met, and worked. On another level, I provide an analysis of the three main operas that Degotti staged for Cherubini at the Monsieur-Feydeau: Lodoïska (18th of July 1791), Eliza ou le voyage au glaciers du Mont Saint-Bernard (13th of December 1794), and Médée (13th of March 1797). In these productions, Degotti revealed new kinds of delightful décor and gothic spaces which allowed him to express the potential of a powerful, detailed, and dynamic setting in creating a novel visual experience. Degotti emerges as a great designer for Cherubini’s operas at the Feydeau, and as a key contributor to the operatic productions at the turn of the nineteenth century.