Abstract
My talk is intended to take advantage of a double institutional anchorage. As dramaturge and advisor to the Festival d'art lyrique d'Aix-en-Provence, I am in an interesting position to observe the evolving relationship that a representative musical institution, born of the catastrophe of the Second World War, can have with Europe as idea, value and institution. As an academic specializing in musical conceptions and representations, I can attempt to put these observations into perspective by tracing the way in which, since the interwar period, the European musical imaginary has been constructed, promoted and sometimes criticized, in parallel with the development of Europe as an institution. To this end, I will briefly mention a number of exemplary musical moments, figures and genres, including : theses and fictions retracing the birth of opera ; some great novels and theatrical scenes giving voice to a concert of nations ; polemical investigations linked to the emergence of jazz, opportunity or threat for Europe; the growing genre of musician biography sketching the figure of the typical European genius ; the ambivalence of the Beethovenian myth - even in the choice of the European anthem ; or some recent polemical essays on the future of European art music, against a backdrop of the global triumph of popular music associated with Anglo-Saxon cultures and the growing demand for greater consideration - including in Europe - of all the world's musical traditions. Returning to my primary institutional anchorage, I will then discuss the way in which a musical institution attempts to provide a framework for reflection on what a certain European musical ideal might be today.
