Editing Romantic music (section)

====France====
{{Main|French opera}}
[[File:Georges bizet.jpg|thumb|upright|Bizet photographed by [[Étienne Carjat]] (1875)]]
During the 19th century, romanticism took a hold of opera and it was [[Paris]] that became one of its main centers. Most romantic operas were composed by composers living in France, such as [[Luigi Cherubini]], [[Gaspare Spontini]], [[François-Adrien Boieldieu]], and [[Daniel-François-Esprit Auber]]. The apogee of the style of great operas is marked by the works of [[Giacomo Meyerbeer]]. [[Hector Berlioz]]'s [[Les Troyens]] was first ignored, [[Benvenuto Cellini]] is consputed during the premiere, while [[Charles Gounod]]'s [[Faust (opera)|Faust]] is one of the most popular French operas of the mid-19th century.

During the second part of the 19th century, [[Georges Bizet]] will revolutionize opera with Carmen: "local color based on the use of Spanish songs and dances" according to Nietzsche, it is "a ray of Mediterranean light dissipating the fog of the Wagnerian ideal". Interest in "local color" works is confirmed with [[Lakmé]] by [[Léo Delibes]], and [[Samson and Delilah (opera)|Samson and Dalila]] by [[Camille Saint-Saëns]]. The most productive French composer of operas of the last part of the century was [[Jules Massenet]] composing works such as [[Manon]], [[Werther]], and [[Thaïs (opera)|Thaïs]].

[[Jacques Offenbach]], who composed [[Les Contes d'Hoffmann]], established himself as the master of French opera-comique of the 19th century, inventing a new genre, the French opéra bouffe, which later was confused with the operetta.

At the beginning of the 20th century, romanticism in France was gradually abandoned in favor of other currents such as [[Impressionism in music|Impressionism]] or [[Symbolism (arts)|symbolism]], carried in particular by [[Claude Debussy]]'s ''[[Pelléas and Mélisande]]'' (1902).