Le femmes fatales in the French fin-de-siècle musical imagination

“Every woman is gall”: with the epigram of the grammarian Pallada, quoted in the epigraph to the novel Carmen, Prosper Mérimée outlined the diabolical charm of the gypsy who inspired Bizet’s opéra-comique, bringing back the archetype of the seductive woman, able to lead men to perdition. Alongside this threatening and subversive figure, the French decadent-symbolist imaginary let emerge other feminine typologies of oriental sensuality (Dalila, Thaïs, Lakmé) or melancholy elusiveness (Manon). Listens, literary texts, iconographic documents will allow us to outline the characters of the ambiguous and polymorphic figure of the femme fatale, on the music scene of the late nineteenth century. Conference followed by a tasting of wines from the Lagoon by the glass