The Opéra-Comique in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. (Speculum Musicae, XV)

According to Lorenzo Frassà, editor of The Opéra-Comique in the Eighteenth and Nine teenth Centuries, the idea of a collection of essays dedicated exclusively to the Opéra-Comique originated from the fact that such methodological complexities 'must be incessantly reassessed and reconsidered as new elements continually become apparent' (p. viii). Lacombe narrates the genre's history in its nineteenth-century legislative context.