ABSTRACT
In February 1770, the Ephemerides du Citoyen, a highly serious journal of physiocratic opinion, departed from its usual policy by including a long review of a new comic opera. Silvain was the story of a harsh landowner and his estranged son, and culminated in the father being brought to tearful forgiveness by an encounter with the son's humble but loving household. The genre of opera comique developed during the mid-eighteenth century through an invigorating transfusion of the Italian opera buffa into the vaudeville tradition of the Parisian fair theatres. Nicolas-Edme Retif de la Bretonne argued that it was precisely the desire to encounter and learn new songs, for use later in one's social life, that underpinned the appeal of the musical theatre. Ever eager to spot instances of licentiousness, Retif located his entire conception of this sung culture as a facilitator of sexuality.
