The Arcades Project - Operi

The world exhibition of 1889 had a Panorama Historique," put together by
Stevens and Gervex, at the conclusion of which a white-haired Victor Hugo was
shown before an allegorical monument of France, which in turn was flanked by
allegories of labor and of national defense. [Q4,5]
Balthasar's Feast, by the conductor and composer lullien (circa 1836): '"The chief
role ... devolved upon seven brilliantly colored transparents, which gleamed so
fantastically in the darkness that lullien's orchestra, instead of being the principal
attraction, sank to being merely an accompaniment. This feast for the eyes, which
was called a "nocturnorama,' was produced by a mechanical device." S. Kracauer,
Jacques Offenbach und das Paris seiner Zeit (Amsterdam, 1937), p. 64.' [Q4a,1]
'"Panorama"IO-the best known of the Greek-based coinages which emerged during
the French Revolution. '"On the seventh of Floreal, in the year VII, Rohert
Fretton took out a patent "for the purpose of exhibiting circular pictures
called panoramas. '" This first attempt would lead to the idea of a peripanorama,'
then a 'cosmorama,' and later a "panstereorama' (1813)." Ferdinand
Brunot, Histoire de La. langue jra1J.(;aise des origines jltsqu'ii 1900; vol. 9, La
Revolution et l'Empire; section 2, Les Evenements, les institutions et 10. langue
(Paris, 1937), p. 1212 ("Les Nomenclatures sous la Revolution"). [Q4a,2]
From Joseph Dufour (1752-1827) we have '"hanging tableaux"-strips twelve to
fifteen meters long, illustrated in the manner of panoramas. They show landscapes
(Bosporus, Italy), genre scenes (savages of the South Seas), mythologies. [Qja,3]
"1 would rather return to the dioramas, whose brutal and enormous magic has the
power to impose on me a useful illusion. 1 would rather go to the theater and feast
my eyes on the scenery, in which I find my dearest dreams artistically expressed
and trabrically concentrated. These things, hecause they are false, are infinitely
closer to the truth." Charles Baudelaire, Oeuvres, ed. Le Dantec, vol. 2 , p. 273 (,,"Salon de 1859," section 8, '"Le Paysage"). ll [Q4a,4]
In Balzac's works, the number of supernumeraries runs to five hundred persons.
Five hundred of his characters appear episodically without heing integrated into
the action. [Q4a,5]