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Books > Arts & Architecture > Performing arts > Theatre, drama > Opera

O ma Carmen - Bizet's Fateful Gypsy in Portrayals from 1875 to the Present (Paperback): Victoria Etnier Villamil O ma Carmen - Bizet's Fateful Gypsy in Portrayals from 1875 to the Present (Paperback)
Victoria Etnier Villamil
R1,233 Discovery Miles 12 330 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Che cos'""? (What is it?) mezzo-soprano Celestine Galli-Marie asked when offered the title role in the 1875 premier of Bizet's new opera, Carmen. She was only the first in a long succession of performers to ask that question. In the more than 140 years since, each singer has delved into the character of Carmen to craft her own portrayal of the inscrutable Gypsy. As the famous American soprano Geraldine Farrar wrote: "Each one of us probably sees something that the others have not seen--or thinks she does--and that `something' is her individual Carmen." This book explores the history of operatic portrayals of Bizet's elusive enchantress, tracing the development of vocal and dramatic interpretations from generation to generation around the globe.

Die Zauberfloete - Libretto (German, Hardcover): Johann Emanuel Schikaneder, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Die Zauberfloete - Libretto (German, Hardcover)
Johann Emanuel Schikaneder, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
R648 Discovery Miles 6 480 Ships in 10 - 15 working days
Experiencing Carl Maria von Weber - A Listener's Companion (Hardcover): Joseph E. Morgan Experiencing Carl Maria von Weber - A Listener's Companion (Hardcover)
Joseph E. Morgan
R1,663 Discovery Miles 16 630 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Scholars have long recognized Carl Maria von Weber as the father of the German Romantic and Nationalist music. The success of his opera Der Freischutz almost single handedly brought German operatic style onto the world stage, competing with and challenging established operatic traditions in France and Italy. Indeed the overtures to his last three operas, Der Freischutz, Euryanthe, and Oberon initiated the genre of the concert overture and are a part of the standard repertoire for most modern symphony orchestras. His works in other genres, including his various concerti and chamber works also stand as centerpieces in the modern concert hall. In Experiencing Carl Maria von Weber: A Listener's Companion, Joseph Morgan walks readers through the many masterpieces that comprise Weber's oeuvre, providing key insights by integrating critical points in the composer's life with the burgeoning Romantic and Nationalist movements in Germany that Weber's music came to champion. Morgan brings to life the musical character of Weber's most important compositions, from his most popular works such as his programme work Aufforderung zum Tanz (Invitation to the Dance), his majestic solo pieces, and his path-breaking song cycle Die Temperamente beim Verluste der Geliebten (Temperaments on the Loss of a Lover). At every turn, Morgan brings together biographical, political, aesthetic, and historical matters to inform our understanding of Weber's compositional genius. From the virtuosity of his piano works and their influence on Liszt and Chopin to his relationships with composers from the earliest parts of the 19th century, including Giacomo Meyerbeer, Franz Schubert and Beethoven, Experiencing Carl Maria von Weber reveals not only the compositional genius of this figure in Romantic music, but his achievements as well as a conductor, music director, and critic who lent his powerful support to his musical peers on stage and page.

La censura sulle opere di Verdi (Italian, Paperback): Gabriele Moroni La censura sulle opere di Verdi (Italian, Paperback)
Gabriele Moroni
R487 Discovery Miles 4 870 Ships in 10 - 15 working days
Carmen (French, Paperback): Murielle Lucie Clement Carmen (French, Paperback)
Murielle Lucie Clement
R416 Discovery Miles 4 160 Ships in 10 - 15 working days
The Real Tales of Hoffmann - Origin, History, and Restoration of an Operatic Masterpiece (Paperback): Vincent Giroud, Michael... The Real Tales of Hoffmann - Origin, History, and Restoration of an Operatic Masterpiece (Paperback)
Vincent Giroud, Michael Kaye; Foreword by Placido Domingo
R3,115 Discovery Miles 31 150 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Of all operas in the standard repertory, none has had a more complicated genesis and textual history than Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann. Based on a highly successful 1851 play inspired by the short stories by the German Romantic writer E.T.A. Hoffmann, the work occupied the last decade of Offenbach's life. When he died in October 1880, the work was being rehearsed at the Opera-Comique. At once cut and rearranged, the work was performed from the start in versions that ignored the composer's final intentions. Only a few decades ago, when previously unavailable manuscripts came to light, it became possible to reconstitute the score in its real form. Vincent Giroud and Michael Kaye's The Real 'Tales of Hoffmann' tells the full story for the first time in English. After discussing how the work of Hoffmann became known and influential in France, the book includes little-known sources for the opera, especially the complete Barbier and Carre play, in French and English. It describes the genesis of the opera. The annotated libretto is published in full, with the variants, for the two versions of the opera: with spoken dialogue or recitatives. Essays explain what was done to the opera after Offenbach's death, from the 1881 Opera-Comique production to more recent restoration attempts. There is also a survey of Les contes d'Hoffmann in performance from the 1970s to the present, and supplementary information, including discography, filmography, and videography. The Real 'Tales of Hoffmann' is intended to appeal to anyone interested in the work, specialists or non-specialists. Audiences, musicologists and students of French opera and opera-comique will find it of particular interest, as will opera houses, conductors, singers, directors, and dramaturgs involved in performances of the opera.

Eine Mitteilung an meine Freunde - Erklarung an das Publikum (German, Paperback): Richard Wagner Eine Mitteilung an meine Freunde - Erklarung an das Publikum (German, Paperback)
Richard Wagner
R271 Discovery Miles 2 710 Ships in 10 - 15 working days
Parsifal (Grossdruck) - Ein Buhnenweihfestspiel (German, Paperback): Richard Wagner Parsifal (Grossdruck) - Ein Buhnenweihfestspiel (German, Paperback)
Richard Wagner
R232 Discovery Miles 2 320 Ships in 10 - 15 working days
Die Walkure (Grossdruck) - Der Rind der Nibelungen. Erster Tag. Textbuch - Libretto (German, Paperback): Richard Wagner Die Walkure (Grossdruck) - Der Rind der Nibelungen. Erster Tag. Textbuch - Libretto (German, Paperback)
Richard Wagner
R298 Discovery Miles 2 980 Ships in 10 - 15 working days
Die Walkure - Erster Tag aus der Trilogie: Der Ring des Nibelungen (German, Paperback): Richard Wagner Die Walkure - Erster Tag aus der Trilogie: Der Ring des Nibelungen (German, Paperback)
Richard Wagner
R408 Discovery Miles 4 080 Ships in 10 - 15 working days
Tristan und Isolde (Grossdruck) - Oper in drei Aufzugen. Textbuch - Libretto (German, Paperback): Richard Wagner Tristan und Isolde (Grossdruck) - Oper in drei Aufzugen. Textbuch - Libretto (German, Paperback)
Richard Wagner
R319 Discovery Miles 3 190 Ships in 10 - 15 working days
Goetterdammerung (Grossdruck) - Der Rind der Nibelungen. Dritter Tag. Textbuch - Libretto (German, Paperback): Richard Wagner Goetterdammerung (Grossdruck) - Der Rind der Nibelungen. Dritter Tag. Textbuch - Libretto (German, Paperback)
Richard Wagner
R299 Discovery Miles 2 990 Ships in 10 - 15 working days
Der fliegende Hollander (Grossdruck) - Romantische Oper in drei Aufzugen (German, Paperback): Richard Wagner Der fliegende Hollander (Grossdruck) - Romantische Oper in drei Aufzugen (German, Paperback)
Richard Wagner
R265 Discovery Miles 2 650 Ships in 10 - 15 working days
Performing Operas for Mozart - Impresarios, Singers and Troupes (Book): Ian Woodfield Performing Operas for Mozart - Impresarios, Singers and Troupes (Book)
Ian Woodfield
R1,178 Discovery Miles 11 780 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

The Italian opera company in Prague managed by Pasquale Bondini and Domenico Guardasoni played a central role in promoting Mozart's operas during the final years of his life. Using a wide range of primary sources which include the superb collections of eighteenth-century opera posters and concert programmes in Leipzig and the Indice de' teatrali spettacoli, an almanac of Italian singers and dancers, this study examines the annual schedules, recruitment networks, casting policies and repertoire selections of this important company. Ian Woodfield shows how Italian-language performances of Figaro, Don Giovanni, Cosi fan tutte and La clemenza di Tito flourished along the well-known cultural axis linking Prague in Bohemia to Dresden and Leipzig in Saxony. The important part played by concert performances of operatic arias in the early reception of Mozart's works is also discussed and new information is presented about the reception of Josepha Duschek and Mozart in Leipzig.

Verdi, Opera, Women - Cambridge Studies in Opera (Book): Susan Rutherford Verdi, Opera, Women - Cambridge Studies in Opera (Book)
Susan Rutherford
R1,184 Discovery Miles 11 840 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Verdi's operas - composed between 1839 and 1893 - portray a striking diversity of female protagonists: warrior women and peacemakers, virgins and courtesans, princesses and slaves, witches and gypsies, mothers and daughters, erring and idealised wives, and, last of all, a feisty quartet of Tudor townswomen in Verdi's final opera, Falstaff. Yet what meanings did the impassioned crises and dilemmas of these characters hold for the nineteenth-century female spectator, especially during such a turbulent span in the history of the Italian peninsula? How was opera shaped by society - and was society similarly influenced by opera? Contextualising Verdi's female roles within aspects of women's social, cultural and political history, Susan Rutherford explores the interface between the reality of the spectators' lives and the imaginary of the fictional world before them on the operatic stage.

Italian Opera in the Age of American Revolution - Cambridge Studies in Opera (Book): Pierpaolo Polzonetti Italian Opera in the Age of American Revolution - Cambridge Studies in Opera (Book)
Pierpaolo Polzonetti
R1,029 Discovery Miles 10 290 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

How did revolutionary America appear to European audiences through their opera glasses? The operas studied in this volume are populated by gun-toting and slave-holding Quakers, handsome Native Americans, female middle-class political leaders, rebellious British soldiers and generous businessmen. Most of them display an unprecedented configuration of social and gender roles, which led leading composers of the time, including Mozart, Haydn, Anfossi, Piccinni and Paisiello, to introduce far-reaching innovations in the musical and dramatic fabric of Italian opera. Polzonetti presents a fresh perspective on the European cultural reception of American social and political identity. Through detailed but accessible analysis of music examples, including previously unpublished musical sources, the book documents and explains important transformations of opera at the time of Mozart's masterpieces, and its long-term consequences up to Puccini. Shedding new light on familiar and less-familiar operatic works, the study represents groundbreaking research in music, cultural and political history.

Harrison Birtwistle's Operas and Music Theatre - Music Since 1900 (Book): David Beard Harrison Birtwistle's Operas and Music Theatre - Music Since 1900 (Book)
David Beard
R1,202 Discovery Miles 12 020 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

David Beard presents the first definitive survey of Harrison Birtwistle's music for the opera house and theatre, from his smaller-scale works, such as Down by the Greenwood Side and Bow Down, to the full-length operas, such as Punch and Judy, The Mask of Orpheus and Gawain. Blending source study with both music analysis and cultural criticism, the book focuses on the sometimes tense but always revealing relationship between abstract musical processes and the practical demands of narrative drama, while touching on theories of parody, narrative, pastoral, film, the body and community. Each stage work is considered in terms of its own specific musico-dramatic themes, revealing how compositional scheme and dramatic conception are intertwined from the earliest stages of a project's genesis. The study draws on a substantial body of previously undocumented primary sources and goes beyond previous studies of the composer's output to include works unveiled from 2000 onwards.

Ein deutscher Musiker in Paris - Eine Pilgerfahrt zu Beethoven und andere Novellen und Aufsatze (German, Paperback): Richard... Ein deutscher Musiker in Paris - Eine Pilgerfahrt zu Beethoven und andere Novellen und Aufsatze (German, Paperback)
Richard Wagner
R270 Discovery Miles 2 700 Ships in 10 - 15 working days
Who Knew? - Answers to Questions about Classical Music you Never Thought to Ask (Paperback): Robert A. Cutietta Who Knew? - Answers to Questions about Classical Music you Never Thought to Ask (Paperback)
Robert A. Cutietta
R527 R441 Discovery Miles 4 410 Save R86 (16%) Ships in 10 - 15 working days

This book answers questions from real classical music lovers about things they have always wondered but didn't know whom to ask. The information in this book is not readily found in music history or appreciation books, nor can it be found on line. Questions explored are: Do string players in orchestras get paid more because they play more than other instruments? Why does an orchestra tune to an oboe when there are electronic tuners? How does a composer decide what key to compose in? Why is the 1812 Overture played on the 4th of July? And many, many more! The answers represent behind the scenes, real world, insights into how classical musicians view and discuss these questions. There is even some insight into the jokes classical musicians find funny. This book is intended for the person who loves listening to classical music, either live or recorded and will provide hours of enjoyment as the reader invariably shakes his or her head and asks in wonderment "Who knew!"

Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft (German, Paperback): Richard Wagner Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft (German, Paperback)
Richard Wagner
R319 Discovery Miles 3 190 Ships in 10 - 15 working days
Carmen (Paperback): Georges Bizet Carmen (Paperback)
Georges Bizet; Volume editing by Nicholas John
R303 R260 Discovery Miles 2 600 Save R43 (14%) Ships in 12 - 17 working days

"Bizet describes himself as 'pagan', and Carmen has a savage Mediterranean beauty quite unique in music. The essays included in this guide suggest some reasons for its legendary theatrical appeal. Martin Cooper describes the traditional mixture of spoken words and song that stimulated Bizet to exclaim, 'I want to revolutionize opera-comique!': the translators show the ingenious and inspired ways in which he set about it. Lesley Wright analyses the score and Michael Rabaud shows the uncanny appropriateness of Nietzche's support for Bizet in his famous attacks on the decadence of Wagner. This is the first time that the complete text of the verses that Bizet set to music and the full dialogue (much of it especially translated for this Opera Guide), have ever been published. Contents: Introduction, Nicholas John; Opera-Comique, Martin Cooper; A Musical Commentary, Lesley A. Wright; 'Carmen': A tragedy oflove, sun and death, Michel Rabaud; Carmen: French text by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halevy after the novel by Prosper Merimee; Carmen: English version by Nell and John Moody"

La boheme (Paperback): Giacomo Puccini La boheme (Paperback)
Giacomo Puccini; Volume editing by Nicholas John
R314 R272 Discovery Miles 2 720 Save R42 (13%) Ships in 12 - 17 working days

These Opera Guides are ideal com-panions to the opera. They provide stimulating introductory articles together with the complete text of each opera in English and the original. Italian opera expert William Ashbrook asks why this love story attracted new audiences to the opera house when it was first performed, and what gives this 'tragedy of fragile sentiment' such an enduring appeal. Neither subject nor score is conventional, yet the sound picture is bound together with a quickness and lightness of touch that the young composer learnt from the eighty-year-old Verdi, whose Falstaff was premiered while La boheme was being conceived. Joanna Richardson surveys the actual Bohemians who inspired, or at least unwittingly supplied the raw material for, Murger's book on which the story is based. Edward Greenfield and Nicholas John examine the subtleties of this best-loved of operas and the merits of a libretto which took Italy's best librettists over three years to finish.

Don Giovanni (Paperback): Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Don Giovanni (Paperback)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; Volume editing by Gary Khan
R309 R266 Discovery Miles 2 660 Save R43 (14%) Ships in 12 - 17 working days

These Opera Guides are ideal com-panions to the opera. They provide stimulating introductory articles together with the complete text of each opera in English and the original. This famous opera ends, after the hero is dragged down to hell, with a warning that evil shall not go unpunished. 'Hardly', as Michael F. Robinson notes, 'one's usual idea of a "comic" subject!' So this guide opens with a brief look at what is actually comic about it. David Wyn Jones gives an overall view of the score: he shows how the musical keys are arranged so that the dramatic momentum over two long acts is maintained and discusses orchestration and dramatic pacing in the most important scenes. Christopher Raeburn contributes a lively portrait of the 'libertine librettist' who, after his Vienna triumphs, was hounded out of London for his debts and eventually died in New York - 'revered as the father of Italian studies in America'. The full original text is given, with a pointed modern translation.

The Shuberts and Their Passing Shows - The Untold Tale of Ziegfeld's Rivals (Hardcover): Jonas Westover The Shuberts and Their Passing Shows - The Untold Tale of Ziegfeld's Rivals (Hardcover)
Jonas Westover
R2,018 Discovery Miles 20 180 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

The Shubert name has been synonymous with Broadway for almost as long as Broadway entertainment itself. With seventeen Broadway theatres including the Ambassador, the Music Box, and the Winter Garden, The Shubert Organization perpetuates brothers Lee and Jacob Shubert's business legacy. In The Shuberts and Their Passing Shows: The Untold Tale of Ziegfeld's Rivals, author Jonas Westover investigates beyond the Shuberts' business empire into their early revues and the centrifugal role they played in developing American theatre as an art form. The Shubert-produced revues, titled Passing Shows, were terrifically popular in the teens and twenties, consistently competing with Florenz Ziegfeld's Follies for the greatest numbers of stars, biggest spectacles, and ultimately the largest audiences. The Shuberts and Their Passing Shows is the first-ever book to unpack the colorful history of the productions, delving into their stars, costumes, stagecraft, and orchestration in unprecedented detail. Providing a fresh and exciting window into American theatrical history, Westover traces the fascinating history of the Shuberts' revue series, presented annually from 1912-1924, and covers more broadly the glorious days of early Broadway. In addition to its compelling history of Broadway's Golden Age, The Shuberts and Their Passing Shows also provides a revisionary argument about the overarching history of the revue. Bolstered by a rich collection of documents in the Shubert Theater Archive, Westover argues against the popular misconception that the Shubert's competitor, producer Florenz Ziegfield - responsible for the better-known Follies - was the sole proprietor of Broadway audiences. As Westover proves, not only were the Passing Shows as popular as the Follies but also a key component in a history of the revue that is vastly more complex than previous scholarship has shown. The Shuberts and Their Passing Shows brings to fruition years of original research and invaluable insights into the gilded formation of present day Broadway.

A Life for the Tsar - Libretto (Russian, Paperback): Mikhail Glinka, Egor Rozen A Life for the Tsar - Libretto (Russian, Paperback)
Mikhail Glinka, Egor Rozen
R234 Discovery Miles 2 340 Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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