This book has been in my bag for a long time and, on reflection, I am glad that I have read it gradually. When the central premise is so simple – Grand Opera Outside Paris is, indeed, about Grand Opera outside Paris – the payback comes in the detail of individual chapters and the slow emergence of a Europe-wide survey of encounter and exchange. The volume's editor, Jens Hesselager, provides an erudite and generous introduction, beginning with the familiar difficulty of defining grand opera and the importance of attending to specific performance contexts. In the first instances, of course, this meant the Paris Opéra, and Hesselager draws our attention to Sarah Hibberd's observation that the coherence of the genre was initially established ‘more through the licensing requirements of [this] institution than by [any] specific dramatic content’ (1). From here, the introduction gently encourages us to look outward.

这本书在我的书包里放了很长时间，回想起来，我很高兴我逐渐阅读了它。当中心前提如此简单时——巴黎郊外的大歌剧院确实是关于巴黎以外的大歌剧院——回报来自于各个章节的细节以及欧洲范围内的相遇和交流调查的缓慢出现。该卷的编辑 Jens Hesselager 提供了博学和慷慨的介绍，从定义大歌剧的常见困难和关注特定表演环境的重要性开始。在第一个例子中，当然，这意味着巴黎歌剧院，Hesselager 提请我们注意 Sarah Hibberd 的观察，即这种类型的连贯性最初是通过[这个]机构的许可要求而不是[任何]特定的戏剧内容”（1）。从这里开始，介绍轻轻地鼓励我们向外看。