Like the previous titles in the Regards sur la musique collection devoted to French opera of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, this volume dedicated to Johann Christian Bach’s Amadis de Gaule is structured around the edition of the libretto and a drammatico-musical commentary on it. Around this pairing, historians, music historians, historians of literature, dance, stage sets etc offer a cross-section of views on this unique and astonishing tragédie lyrique by the "London Bach", one of the most eminent composers of the late eighteenth century. The work is based on the beautiful libretto (considerably modified by Devismes de Saint-Alphonse) that Quinault had written for Lully a century earlier. It was premiered at the Paris Opéra in 1779 at a time when the Parisian public was torn between Gluckists and Piccinists.

The texts proposed here shed new light on the figure of the composer in his relationship with France, and in the reception of this singular work by the French public. They attempt to analyse the reasons for the resurgence in 1779 of the myth of Amadis in literature, why the Moderns needed to call on Quinault’s old librettos, and the way in which they did so.

This book was produced with the assistance of Céline Bohnert, Marie-Françoise Bouchon, Benoît de Cornulier, Michael Greenberg, Dominique Lauvernier, Buford Norman, Mélanie Traversier, Marc Vignal, Mathilde Vittu and Jean Duron.