Saint-Saëns and the Stage: Operas, Plays, Pageants, a Ballet, and a Film.

Biographers and critics have focused their attention elsewhere, likely due to the relative obscurity in which Saint-Saëns's operas hide, for as Macdonald writes, "there is no living tradition to judge them by" (p. xi). Saint-Saëns himself was a critic; Macdonald frequently uses the composer's own words to bolster his claims that Saint-Saëns was the victim of unjust critical bias. Though Guiraud's contribution was that of a "thoroughly professional composer", in Macdonald's estimation, it was merely "good enough at least for Saint-Saëns to attach his name to it" (p. 254). Saint-Saëns's seemingly Janus-faced career left even contemporary critics and composers grasping for a label that would best fit the composer's changing faces. [Extracted from the article]