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Books > Arts & Architecture > Performing arts > Theatre, drama > Opera
This study sets Mozart, especially his four most celebrated operas - "Il Seraglio", "Cosi Fan Tutte", "Don Giovanni" and "The Magic Flute", in the context of Enlightenment literature and thought. For this new edition, the author has revised a number of passages and has focused on "Idomeneo" and "La Clemenza di Tito".
Many musical and theatrical traditions walk the very narrow path between the sublime and the ridiculous, but perhaps none more so than opera, which, while maintaining an elegant reputation, makes a show out of princes making romantic speeches to soft fruit, noses being accidentally cut off and woodpeckers performing wedding ceremonies. Opera Obscura is a beautifully illustrated collection that contributes twenty-five brand new impossibly madcap operas to the canon of magnificent absurdities, along with the intricate blueprints for several incredible opera houses and information on of a whole range of almost unbelievably incredible instruments.
Regina Mingotti was the first female impresario to run London's opera house. Born in Naples in 1722, she was the daughter of an Austrian diplomat, and had worked at Dresden under Hasse from 1747. Mingotti left Germany in 1752, and travelled to Madrid to sing at the Spanish court, where the opera was directed by the great castrato, Farinelli. It is not known quite how Francesco Vanneschi, the opera promoter, came to hire Mingotti, but in 1754 (travelling to England via Paris), she was announced as being engaged for the opera in London 'having been admired at Naples and other parts of Italy, by all the Connoisseurs, as much for the elegance of her voice as that of her features'. Michael Burden offers the first considered survey of Mingotti's London years, including material on Mingotti's publication activities, and the identification of the characters in the key satirical print 'The Idol'. Burden makes a significant contribution to the knowledge and understanding of eighteenth-century singers' careers and status, and discusses the management, the finance, the choice of repertory, and the pasticcio practice at The King's Theatre, Haymarket during the middle of the eighteenth century. Burden also argues that Mingotti's years with Farinelli influenced her understanding of drama, fed her appreciation of Metastasio, and were partly responsible for London labelling her a 'female Garrick'. The book includes the important publication of the complete texts of both of Mingotti's Appeals to the Publick, accounts of the squabble between Mingotti and Vanneschi, which shed light on the role a singer could play in the replacement of arias.
The first book devoted to stage managing opera productions. Perfect for aspiring and professional stage managers looking to expand their skillset into another genre of production. Features experience and advice from a variety of stage managers.
Medievalism, or the reception or interpretation of the Middle Ages, was a prominent aesthetic for German opera composers in the first half of the nineteenth century. A healthy competition to establish a Germanic operatic repertory arose at this time, and fascination with medieval times served a critical role in shaping the desire for a unified national and cultural identity. Using operas by Weber, Schubert, Marshner, Wagner, and Schumann as case studies, Richardson investigates what historical information was available to German composers in their recreations of medieval music, and whether or not such information had any demonstrable effect on their compositions. The significant role that nationalism played in the choice of medieval subject matter for opera is also examined, along with how audiences and critics responded to the medieval milieu of these works. In this book, readers will gain a clear understanding of the rise of German opera in the early nineteenth century and the cultural and historical context in which this occurred. This book will also provide insight on the reception of medieval history and medieval music in nineteenth-century Germany, and will demonstrate how medievalism and nationalism were mutually reinforcing phenomena at this time and place in history.
The first book devoted to stage managing opera productions. Perfect for aspiring and professional stage managers looking to expand their skillset into another genre of production. Features experience and advice from a variety of stage managers.
Insights into an opera stage director's work from an internationally acclaimed director and teacher. Opera is nowadays performed worldwide. But as an art form it is little understood by performers and audiences alike. The Crafty Art of Opera wants to change that. Here, Michael Hampe brings glimpses of the director's work to a wider audience, uncovering the many techniques and rules that should inform an opera's staging: the need for singers to know their orchestra, the importance of space around singers, the gestures of languages, what we all can learn from Mozart, and the primacy of sense over effect, to name but a few. He shows how stories, through music, become tangible and real. Packed with many anecdotes from the author's luminous career, this book is dedicatedto opera-lovers who want to understand 'how it is done'; to opera-makers who want to better understand their craft; and, last but not least, to those who loathe opera, in order to prove them wrong. Eminently readable, it brings both insight and wit from a life spent in opera as director and teacher. MICHAEL HAMPE is an internationally acclaimed opera stage director. The Crafty Art of Opera was published in German as Opernschule.
In this widely ranging collection of essays, a group of contemporary psychoanalyst/authors turn their finely-honed listening skills and clinical experience to plumb the depths and illuminate themes of character, drama, myth, culture, and psychobiography in some of the world's most beloved operas. The richly diverse chapters are unified by a psychoanalytic approach to the nuances of unconscious mental life and emotional experience as they unfold synergistically in opera's music, words, and drama. Opera creates a unique bridge between thought and feeling, mind and body, and conscious and unconscious that offers fertile ground for psychological exploration of profound human truths. Each piece is written in a colorful and non-technical manner that will appeal to mental health professionals, musicians, academics, and general readers wishing to better understand and appreciate opera as an art form.
This comprehensive research guide surveys the most significant published materials relating to Giuseppe Verdi. This new edition includes research since the publication of the first edition in 1998.
The role of affect in how people think and behave in social
situations has been a source of fascination to laymen and
philosophers since time immemorial. Surprisingly, most of what we
know about the role of feelings in social thinking and behavior has
been discovered only during the last two decades. Affect in Social
Thinking and Behavior reviews and integrates the most recent
research and theories on this exciting topic, and features original
contributions reviewing key areas of affect research from leading
researchers active in the area.
What is the role of classical music in the 21st Century? How will classical musicians maintain their relevance and purpose? This book follows the working activities of professional orchestral musicians and opera singers as they move off stage into schools, community centres, prisons, libraries and corporations, engaging with their communities in new, rich ways through education and community engagement programmes. Key examples of collaborative partnership between orchestras, opera companies, schools and music services in the delivery of music education are investigated, with a focus on the UK's Music Hub system. The impact of these partnerships is examined, both in terms of how they inspire and foster the next generation of musicians as well as the extent to which they broaden access to quality music education. Detailed case studies are provided on the impact of classical music education programmes on social cohesion, health and wellbeing and education outcomes for students from low socio-economic communities. The implications for the future training of classical musicians are analysed, as are the new career paths for orchestral musicians and composers straddling performance and education. Opening Doors: Orchestras, Opera Companies and Community Engagement investigates the ways in which the classical music industry is reinventing its sense of purpose, never a more important or urgent pursuit than in the present decade.
The first biography of Richard D'Oyly Carte, this is a critical survey of the career of the impresario whose ambitions went beyond the famous partnership of Gilbert and Sullivan. Errors and misconceptions in current literature are challenged and corrected to give a truer portrayal of one of the most influential music theatre promoters in the nineteenth century.
Amanda Glauert revisits Beethoven's songs and studies his profound engagement with the aesthetics of the poets he was setting, particularly those of Herder and Goethe. The book offers readers a rich exploration of the poetical and philosophical context in which Beethoven found himself when composing songs. It also offers detailed commentaries on possible responses to specific songs, responses designed to open up new ways for performing, hearing and appreciating this provocative song repertoire. This study will be of great interest to researchers of Beethoven; German song; aesthetics of words and music.
A guide to the origins and music of Szymanowski's exquisitely beautiful opera King Roger. Karol Szymanowski (1881-1937), the most important Polish composer after Chopin, wrote only two operas, the second of which, King Roger, completed in 1924, is a masterpiece. After decades of neglect this magnificent work hasbegun to receive more attention around the world, and this first extended study of King Roger investigates its origins, uncovers its ideology, examines its music and documents its history. The book opens with an outline of the role the theatre played in Szymanowski's career, from his early operetta, Lottery for Husbands, and the rousing ballet panotmime, Harnasie, based on legends from the Polish highlands. Intracing the evolution of King Roger from conception to completion, Alistair Wightman, one of the leading Szymanowki scholars, examines the contribution of the co-librettist, Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz, and serveys the various strands which make up its ideology, from Euripides The Bacchae and Plato Phaedrus and The Symposium to works by Pater, Nietzsche, Merezhkovsky and Micinski. He charts Szymanowski's fascination with the historical background of the opera, the world of the twelfth-century ruler of Norman Sicily, Roger II (1095-1154). Szymanowski's own novel, Efebos, written in 1918-19 and only partially preserved offers intriguing parallels with hisopera. ALISTAIR WIGHTMAN has written extensively about Polish music of the early twentieth century and his translation, Szymanowski on Music was published by Toccata Press in 1999.
History, Opera, Music, Stage, Voice, Theatre, Performance
The extraordinary correspondence between the impresario Felice Giardini and his friend Gabriele Leone lies at the centre of this study of Italian opera in London in the eighteenth century. Hired by Giardini in 1763 to engage Italian performers for a season of opera and ballet at The King's Theatre, Leone was sued by the impresario when the performers he had recruited proved to be second rate. His response was to publish the letters and instructions that Giardini had sent to him, which feature the impresario's ten commandments for the novice foreign opera agent. These letters are transcribed and translated in this volume. As the authors reveal, the documents provide a vivid and detailed source of information about the world of eighteenth-century Italian opera, both in London and in Italy.
L'incoronazione di Poppea is the most compelling of all early Italian operas and this has, in part, been responsible for the way in which it has become separated from its social and historical context. In this book, Iain Fenlon and Peter Miller show how an understanding of contemporary Venetian intellectual currents and preoccupations provides a key to the structure of the opera's libretto, the progress of the action and the points of emphasis in both the music and the text.
This book responds to recent debates on cultural participation and the relevancy of music composed today with the first large-scale audience experience study on contemporary classical music. Through analysing how existing audience members experience live contemporary classical music, this book seeks to make data-informed contributions to future discussions on audience diversity and accessibility. The author takes a multidimensional view of audience experience, looking at how sociodemographic factors and the frames of social context and concert format shape aesthetic responses and experiences in the concert hall. The book presents quantitative and qualitative audience data collected at twelve concerts in ten different European countries, analysing general trends alongside case studies. It also offers the first large-scale comparisons between the concert experiences and tastes of contemporary classical and classical music audiences. Contemporary classical music is critically discussed as a 'high art subculture' rife with contradictions and conflicts around its cultural value. This book sheds light on how audiences negotiate the tensions between experimentalism and accessibility that currently define this genre. It provides insights relevant to academics from audience research in the performing arts and from musicology, as well as to institutions, practitioners, and artists.
Vincenzo Bellini's Norma, first produced at La Scala, Milan, in 1831, is widely regarded as the greatest achievement of the bel canto era. Its title role, sung at the premiere by Giuditta Pasta, has been undertaken in more recent times by Maria Callas, Joan Sutherland and Monserrat Caballe and remains one of the supremely challenging soprano parts in the operatic repertory. The opera tells of the conflicting loyalties of the High Priestess of the Druids, Norma, who is torn between her duty to her people and her love for the father of her two children, the proconsul of the occupying Roman forces in Gaul. The guide contains articles on the background to the opera and the development of bel canto, a detailed examination of its musical structure and a survey of its performance history, dealing in particular with the approaches of some of the many distinguished singers who have appeared in its principal roles. There is also a discussion of the contentious issue of which voice-types should more appropriately be singing each of the two leading female characters. The guide includes the full libretto with English translation, sixteen pages of illustrations, a musical thematic guide, a discography, a bibliography, and DVD and website guides.
A fresh, elegant and vital enquiry into the elusive character of opera, unfolded through categories and case-studies, with an emphasis on historical background, psychology and performance. This book mounts a searching enquiry into the elusive character of opera. The author argues that any work of art can be grasped primarily through its constellation of Platonic ideas, or 'categories', several of which he explores in light of a new definition of the art-form. He elaborates each category with case-studies rooted in the time, place and circumstance of an opera's origin: most of these are adaptations of previously-published essays, though somedraw on talks for universities, opera houses and the BBC. Although he looks back to the infancy of opera, he concentrates on later, more familiar repertory - principally Wagner, Verdi, Strauss and Britten. Case-studies included under 'Psychology' reveal his long-standing involvement with psychoanalysis, and those under 'Performance' reinforce his view of opera as a branch of rhetoric. As the first of a two-volume project, What Opera Means deals with categories accessible to all: of fifty entries, only two require basic musical knowledge (the second volume will be for specialists). The book is thus suitable for the general reader, as well as for college courses. CHRISTOPHER WINTLE is Emeritus Senior Lecturer in Music at King's College London and General Editor of the series Defining Opera (Plumbago Books). He has published extensively on nineteenth- and twentieth-century music, and for twenty years was an opera critic for the Times Literary Supplement. KATE HOPKINS (Editor) is Content Producer for Opera at the Royal Opera House and Senior Assistant Editor of Plumbago Books. She has written on opera and literature for ENO, WNO and The Royal Opera.
Victorian Vocalists is a masterful and entertaining collection of 100 biographies of mid- to late-19th-century singers and stars. Kurt Ganzl paints a vivid picture of the Victorian operatic and concert world, revealing the backgrounds, journeys, successes, failures and misdemeanours of these singers. This volume is not only an outstanding reference work for anyone interested in vocalists of the era, but also a compelling, meticulously researched picture of life in the vast shark tank that was Victorian music. |
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