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Books > Arts & Architecture > Performing arts > Theatre, drama > Opera
In the early nineteenth century over forty operas by foreign
composers, including Mozart, Rossini, Weber and Bellini, were
adapted for London playhouses, often appearing in drastically
altered form. Such changes have been denigrated as 'mutilations'.
The operas were translated into English, fitted with spoken
dialogue, divested of much of their music, augmented with
interpolations and frequently set to altered libretti. By the end
of the period, the radical changes of earlier adaptations gave way
to more faithful versions. In the first comprehensive study of
these adaptations, Christina Fuhrmann shows how integral they are
to our understanding of early nineteenth-century opera and the
transformation of London's theatrical and musical life. This book
reveals how these operas accelerated repertoire shifts in the
London theatrical world, fostered significant changes in musical
taste, revealed the ambiguities and inadequacies of copyright law
and sparked intense debate about fidelity to the original work.
A mesmerizing figure in concert, Charles Munch was celebrated for
his electrifying public performances. He was a pioneer in many
arenas of classical music-establishing Berlioz in the canon,
perfecting the orchestral work of Debussy and Ravel, and leading
the world to Roussel, Honegger, and Dutilleux. A pivotal figure,
his accomplishments put him on a par with Arturo Toscanini and
Leonard Bernstein. In Charles Munch, D. Kern Holoman provides the
first full biography of this giant of twentieth-century music,
tracing his dramatic survival in occupied Paris, his triumphant
arrival at the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and his later years, when
he was a leading cultural figure in the United States, a man known
and admired by Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy. He
turned to conducting only in middle age, after two decades as a
violinist and concertmaster, a background which gave him special
insight into the relationship between conductor and orchestra. At
the podium, his bond with his musicians unleashed something in them
and in himself. "A certain magic took wing that amounts to the very
essence of music in concert," the author writes, as if "public
performance loosed the facets of character and artistry and poetry
otherwise muffled by his timidity and simple disinclination to say
much." In concert, Munch was arresting, even seductive, sweeping
his baton in an enormous arch from above his head down to his knee.
Yet as Holoman shows, he remained a lonely, even sad figure, a
widower with no children, a man who fled admirers and avoided
reporters. With groundbreaking research and sensitive, lyrical
writing, Charles Munch penetrates the enigma to capture this
elusive musical titan.
Composer John Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb collaborated for more
than forty years, longer than any such partnership in Broadway
history. Together they wrote over twenty musicals. Their two most
successful works, Cabaret and Chicago, had critically acclaimed
Broadway revivals and were made into Oscar-winning films. This
book, the first study of Kander and Ebb, examines their artistic
accomplishments as individuals and as a team. Drawing on personal
papers and on numerous interviews, James Leve analyzes the unique
nature of this collaboration. Leve discusses their contribution to
the concept musical; he examines some of their most popular works
including Cabaret, Chicago, and Kiss of the Spider Woman; and he
reassesses their "flops" as well as their incomplete and abandoned
projects. Filled with fascinating information, the book is a
resource for students of musical theater and lovers of Kander and
Ebb's songs and shows.
Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) is well known as the composer of the
earliest operas still performed today. His Orfeo, Il ritorno
d'Ulisse in patria, and L'incoronazione di Poppea are
internationally popular nearly four centuries after their creation.
These seminal works represent only a part of Monteverdi's music for
the stage, however. He also wrote numerous works that, while not
operas, are no less theatrical in their fusion of music, drama, and
dance. This impressive book is the first to survey Monteverdi's
entire output of music for the theater-his surviving operas, lost
operas, and other dramatic musical compositions. Tim Carter, a
leading Monteverdi expert, begins by charting the progress of early
opera from the north Italian courts to the "public" theaters of
Venice. He places Monteverdi's stage works in the broader context
of early seventeenth-century theatrical endeavor and explores
crucial questions of genre, interpretation, and performance
practices both then and now. Taking a pragmatic view of how the
works were brought to life in the theater and how they were seen in
their own time, Carter discusses the complex modes of production
that involved a range of artists, artisans, creators, and
performers. With insightful commentary on the composer's individual
works and on the cultural and theatrical contexts in which they
were performed, Carter casts new light on Monteverdi's remarkable
achievement as a man of the theater.
In Singing in Greek: A Guide to Greek Lyric Diction and Vocal
Repertoire, Lydia Zervanos reveals to singers the vast riches of
Greek vocal music. Dating back to 1770, Greek art music-following
the Western European styles, often drawing on themes from folk
music and motifs-long awaits its rightful place in a truly
international vocal repertoire. Modern singers in search of new
musical opportunities will find in Singing in Greek the necessary
tools to locate and perform art songs and arias from this extensive
national vocal repertoire. Concisely written and full of practical
advice, the book opens with an introduction to the Greek alphabet
and pronunciation, navigating the assignment of International
Phonetic Alphabet symbols. Zervanos covers such topics as Greek
vowels, digraphs, consonants, binary consonants, consonant
combinations, palatalization, basic Greek grammatical concepts and
their role in stress and length, syllabification, and
punctuation-all separated into easily referenced chapters and
supported by online recordings of native Greek opera singers. In
the second half of Singing in Greek, Zervanos offers a short
history of Greek art music, biographies of prominent Greek
composers, texts of their most representative works with IPA
transcriptions, and word-for-word and poetic translations, with
arias and art songs chosen for all voice types and levels. This
book also includes indexes of direct vowel-to-IPA and
consonant-to-IPA transcriptions, as well as useful appendixes on
publications, organizations, and famous Greek poets. Singing in
Greek is a must-have resource for every singer, voice teacher,
vocal coach, collaborative pianist, and opera and choral conductor
seeking to perform and teach in this unique language, explore the
wealth of music available, and expand their knowledge of Greek
repertoire.
Written to meet the needs of thousands of students and
pre-professional singers participating in production workshops and
classes in opera and musical theater, Acting for Singers leads
singing performers step by step from the studio or classroom
through audition and rehearsals to a successful performance. Using
a clear, systematic, positive approach, this practical guide
explains how to analyze a script or libretto, shows how to develop
a character building on material in the score, and gives the
singing performer the tools to act believably. More than just a
"how-to" acting book, however, Acting for Singers also addresses
the problems of concentration, trust, projection, communication,
and the self-doubt that often afflicts performers pursuing the goal
of believable performance. Part I establishes the basic principles
of acting and singing together, and teaches the reader how to
improvise as a key tool to explore and develop characters. Part II
teaches the singer how to analyze theatrical work for rehearsing,
and performing. Using concrete examples from Carmen and West Side
Story, and imaginative exercises following each chapter, this text
teaches all singers how to be effective singing actors.
Western opera is a globalized and globalizing phenomenon and
affords us a unique opportunity for exploring the concept of
"orientalism," the subject of literary scholar Edward Said's modern
classic on the topic. Nicholas Tarling's Orientalism and the
Operatic World places opera in the context of its steady
globalization over the past two centuries. In this important
survey, Tarling first considers how the Orient appears on the
operatic stage in Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and the United
States before exploring individual operas according to the region
of the "Orient" in which the work is set. Throughout, Tarling
offers key insights into such notable operas as George Frideric
Handel's Berenice, Giuseppe Verdi's Aida, Giacomo Puccini's Madama
Butterfly, Pietro Mascagni's Iris, and others. Orientalism and the
Operatic World argues that any close study of the history of
Western opera, in the end, fails to support the notion propounded
by Said that Westerners inevitably stereotyped, dehumanized, and
ultimately sought only to dominate the East through art. Instead,
Tarling argues that opera is a humanizing art, one that emphasizes
what humanity has in common by epic depictions of passion through
the vehicle of song. Orientalism and the Operatic World is not
merely for opera buffs or even first-time listeners. It should also
interest historians of both the East and West, scholars of
international relations, and cultural theorists.
"Peking Opera and Politics in Taiwan tells the peculiar story of an
art caught in a sea of overtly ideological ebbs and flows. Nancy
Guy demonstrates the potential significance of the political
environment for an art form's development, ranging from determining
the smallest performative details (such as how a melody can or
cannot be composed to whether a tradition ultimately thrives or
withers away. When Chiang Kai-Shek's Nationalists retreated to
Taiwan in 1949, they brought Peking opera performers with them to
strengthen their authority through a symbolically important art.
Valuing mainland Chinese culture above Taiwanese culture, the
Nationalists generously supported Peking opera to the virtual
exclusion of local performing traditions, despite their wider
popularity. Later, as Taiwan turned toward democracy, the island's
own "indigenous" products became more highly valued and Peking
opera found itself on a tenuous footing. Finally, in 1995, all of
its opera troupes and schools (formerly supported by the ministry
of Defense) were dismantled. Nancy Guy investigates the mechanisms
through which Peking Opera was perpetuated, controlled, and
ultimately disempowered, and explores the artistic and political
consequences of the state's involvement as its primary patron. Her
study provides a unique perspective on the interplay between
ideology and power within Taiwan's dynamic society.
Historians of French politics, art, philosophy and literature have
long known the tensions and fascinations of Louis XV's reign, the
1750s in particular. David Charlton's study comprehensively
re-examines this period, from Rameau to Gluck and elucidates the
long-term issues surrounding opera. Taking Rousseau's Le Devin du
Village as one narrative centrepiece, Charlton investigates this
opera's origins and influences in the 1740s and goes on to use past
and present research to create a new structural model that explains
the elements of reform in Gluck's tragedies for Paris. Charlton's
book opens many new perspectives on the musical practices and
politics of the period, including the Querelle des Bouffons. It
gives the first detailed account of intermezzi and opere buffe
performed by Eustachio Bambini's troupe at the Paris Opera from
August 1752 to February 1754 and discusses Rameau's comedies Platee
and Les Paladins and their origins.
This monograph is an authoritative study of the oeuvre of one of
the most important composers of our time. For the first time,
Ligeti's key works are presented in the context of their drafts and
sketches. His personal and artistic development is set forth and
illuminated, and his principal compositions are analyzed and
reinterpreted, based on detailed studies of the scores and drafts,
as well as on personal conversations with the composer. In
addition, numerous questions concerning today's composing are
raised and discussed. Music does not have to be puristic: Ligeti's
spheres of interest are close to universal, embracing history,
natural science, and visual arts, as well as music of diverse eras
and ethnicities. This expanded world of the musical comprises not
just tones and sounds, speech and music, the vocal and the
instrumental: Ligeti conceives music as a cosmos of acoustic form.
At the turn of the twentieth century Italian opera participated to
the making of a modern spectator. The Ricordi stage manuals testify
to the need to harness the effects of operatic performance,
activating opera's capacity to cultivate a public. This book
considers how four operas and one film deal with their public: one
that in Boito's Mefistofele is entertained by special effects, or
that in Verdi's Simon Boccanegra is called upon as a political body
to confront the specters of history. Also a public that in Verdi's
Otello is subjected to the manipulation of contemporary acting, or
one that in Puccini's Manon Lescaut is urged to question the
mechanism of spectatorship. Lastly, the silent film Rapsodia
satanica, thanks to the craft and prestige of Pietro Mascagni's
score, attempts to transform the new industrial medium into art,
addressing its public's search for a bourgeois pan-European
cultural identity, right at the outset of the First World War.
The Magic Flute is an opera in two acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the
form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and
spoken dialogue. The work premiered in 1791 at Schikaneder's
theatre, the Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden in Vienna.
Modernity between Wagner and Nietzsche analyzes the operas and
writings of Wagner in order to prove that the ideas on which they
are based contradict and falsify the values that are fundamental to
modernity. This book also analyzes the ideas that are central to
the philosophy of Nietzsche, demonstrating that the values on the
basis of which he breaks with Wagner and repudiates their common
mentor, Schopenhauer, are those fundamental to modernity. Brayton
Polka makes use of the critical distinction that Kierkegaard draws
between Christianity and Christendom. Christianity represents what
Nietzsche calls the faith that is presupposed in unconditionally
willing the truth in saying yes to life. Christendom, in contrast,
represents the bad faith of nihilism in saying no to life. Polka
then shows that Wagner, in following Schopenhauer, represents
Christendom with the demonstration in his operas that life is
nothing but death and death is nothing but life. In other words,
the purpose of the will for Wagner is to annihilate the will, since
it is only in and through death that human beings are liberated
from life as willfully sinful. Nietzsche, in contrast, is
consistent with the biblical concept that existence is created from
nothing, from nothing that is not made in the image of God, that
any claim that the will can will not to will is contradictory and
hence false. For not to will is, in truth, still to will nothing.
There is then, Nietzsche shows, no escape from the will. Either
human beings will the truth in saying yes to life as created from
nothing, or in truly willing nothing, they say no to life in
worshiping the God of Christendom who is dead.
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