L’énigme de Robert le Diable Le légendaire, le roman noir et le spectaculaire ou l’invention du « Grand Opéra à la française » par Eugène Scribe et Germain Delavigne

The article sees Robert le Diable, the first work of French Romantic opera to enjoy extraordinary success, as the privileged courier of the spirit of the roman noir which it will transmit to the detective novel. The close cooperation of Scribe and Meyerbeer, by reducing the Gothic to a recurring handful of stereotypical, mysterious, and enigmatic rather than terrifying images, makes this book a blueprint for the deployment of the spectacular and an appeal to the musical leitmotif.