Enamel Eyes, a Fantasia on Paris, 1870

In lyric poetry with the dramatic sweep of a historical novel, Jay Rogoff’s Enamel Eyes, a Fantasia on Paris, 1870 reimagines “the terrible year” when the Franco-Prussian War shook the City of Lights. The great comic ballet Coppélia had dazzled Paris and Emperor Napoleon III mere weeks before war erupted; in retrospect, the ballet’s obsession with a mechanical woman anticipated the conflict’s mechanized violence. Using multiple voices and poetic forms, Rogoff skillfully recreates the wonder and