Trapes. There it is now! Whoever heard a man of fortune in England talk of the necessaries of life? If the necessaries of life would have satisfy'd such a poor body as me, to be sure I had never come to mend my fortune to the Plantations. Whether we can afford it or no, we must have superfluities. We never stint our Expence to our own fortunes, but are miserable, if we do not live up to the profuseness of our neighbours.

Bri. No, give me a husband that knows where his limbs are, though he want the use of them--and if he should take you with him--to sleep in a baggage cart, and stroll about the camp like a gipsey, with a knapsack and two children at your back--then by way of entertainment in the evening, to make a party with the Serjeants wife, to drink bohea tea, and play at all fours on a drumhead, 'tis a precious life to be sure.

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Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

1898. With illustrations and diagrams. From the Preface: In writing the thousand and first book on Richard Wagner and his work, I do not pretend to accomplish anything better than has yet been done. My aim has been something quite different, -a real practical guide to Bayreuth for the French which will answer the needs and satisfy the curiosity of those of our nation who have not yet taken that little journey, which is so easy and attractive. I have also desired to indicate what state of mind it should be undertaken and what seductive preliminary studies are necessary to the complete enjoyment of the trip; finally, it has been my desire to present the Wagnerian style in its own proper light, by dissipating the clouds with which it has been enveloped by certain of its commentators, who, far from smoothing the way, have made it bristle with difficulties. This is the sole criticism I will allow myself: they write for Wagnerians, not for neophytes.

A complete vocal score of Somtow Sucharitkul's 2003 horror opera, "Mae Naak," edited and with a piano reduction by Trisdee na Patalung. The Nation called this opera "a truly great work" with its exotic colors and ironic cross-breeding of Thai folk music with the tropes of horror film music. As noted for its grand guignol as its sweeping lyricism, "Mae Naak" has been garnering rave reviews since its Bangkok Opera debut with Nancy Yuen in the title role.

PRAISE FOR THE PREVIOUS EDITIONS: "If you are for opera, this book is for you."--"New York Times Book Review"The most influential recent book on opera criticism. . . in the English-speaking world"--"New Grove Dictionary of Opera"Affords the serious reader and listener an absorbing encounter with a sensitive and superbly trained intelligence in the act of thinking about music and music criticism. . . . We come away remembering the sound of Kerman's prose voice, mellifluous, elegant, eminently civilized, beneath its cool control a ground bass of urgent feeling."--"San Francisco Chronicle Book Review"The author's clarity and pungency...make for enjoyable, challenging reading. It is a collection that can tease the person who is primarily interested in opera into wanting to explore the song literature of the English Renaissance or to listen more knowledgeably to Mozart's piano concertos and Beethoven's symphonies."--William Ashbrook, "Opera Quarterly ""Kerman's musicological activity is technical without neglecting the importance of text, cultural context, meaning, expression, and value, and is likely to appeal to educated lay people.... Kerman's scholarship is careful and sensitive, and often subtle and witty. Yet this subtle scholarship has evoked strong and widespread reaction and provided significant leadership within musicology and beyond."--Renee Cox Lorraine, "Notes ""Lucid, lively.... Many aspects of his work can provide inspiration."--Oliver Neighbour, "Music and Letters"

What is opera? Contributors to The Oxford Handbook of Opera respond to this deceptively simple question with a rich and compelling exploration of opera's adaption to changing artistic and political currents. Fifty of the world's most respected scholars cast opera as a fluid entity that continuously reinvents itself in a reflection of its patrons, audience, and creators. The synergy of power, performance, and identity recurs thematically throughout the volume's major topics: Words, Music, and Meaning; Performance and Production; Opera and Society; and Transmission and Reception. Individual essays engage with repertoire from Monteverdi, Mozart, and Meyerbeer to Strauss, Henze, and Adams in studies of composition, national identity, transmission, reception, sources, media, iconography, humanism, the art of collecting, theory, analysis, commerce, singers, directors, criticism, editions, politics, staging, race, and gender. The title of the penultimate section, Opera on the Edge, suggests the uncertainty of opera's future: is opera headed toward catastrophe or have social and musical developments of the last hundred years stimulated something new and exciting, and, well, operatic? In an epilogue to the volume, a contemporary opera composer speaks candidly about opera composition today. The Oxford Handbook of Opera is an essential companion to scholars, educators, advanced students, performers, and knowledgeable listeners: those who simply love opera.

This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishings Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the worlds literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

1902. Illustrated. Contents: Ballad Opera; English Opera; Italian Opera-Max Maretzek; Italian Opera-Hackett and Ullman; Italian Opera-Strakosch and De Vivo; Italian Opera-Mapleson; German Opera; Grand Opera of Recent Years; and Opera in English.

Lakme is the daughter of Nilakantha, a fanatical Brahmin priest, who has withdrawn to a ruined temple deep in an Indian forest. In his retreat the old man nurses his wrath against the British invader, prays assiduously to Brahma (thus contributing a fascinating Oriental mood to the opening of the opera), and waits for the time to come when he shall be able to wreak his revenge on the despoilers of his country. Lakme sings Oriental duets with her slave, Mallika.

1882. This volume contains The Rhine-Gold (Das Rheingold), the prelude to Wagner's trilogy: The Nibelung's Ring. Acknowledged as the master of German opera, and one of the most progressive composers in history, his monumental cycle of four musical dramas, collectively titled Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelungs) and comprised of Das Rheingold, Die Walkure, Siegfried and Die Gotterdammerung, took 22 years to complete, and stands as one of the most remarkable and influential achievements in Western music.

In the sometimes faulty and incomplete records of the American stage to which writers on musical history have hitherto been forced to repair, 1750 is set down as the natal year for English ballad opera in America. It is thought that it was in that year that "The Beggar's Opera" found its way to New York, after having, in all probability, been given by the same company of comedians in Philadelphia in the middle of the year preceding. But it is as little likely that these were the first performances of ballad operas on this side of the Atlantic as that the people of New York were oblivious of the nature of operatic music of the Italian type until Garcia's troupe came with Rossini's "Barber of Seville," in 1825.

John Hunt was born in Windsor and Graduated from University College London, in German language and literature. He has worked in personnel administration, record retailing and bibliographic research for a government agency and is on the lecture panel of the National Federation of Music Societies. In his capacity as Chairman of the Furtwangler Society UK, John Hunt has attended conventions in Rome, Paris and Zurich and has contributed to important reference works about Furtwangler by John Ardoin and Joachim Matzner. He has also translated from the German Jurgen Kesting's important monograph on Maria Callas. John Hunt has published discographies of over 80 performing artists, several of which have run into two or more editions.

1909. The author examines the following operas: Il Barbiere di Siviglia; Le Nozze di Figaro; Die Zauberflote; Don Giovanni; Fidelio; Faust; Mefistofele; La Damnation de Faust; La Traviata; Aida; Der Freischutz; Tannhauser; Tristan und Isolde; Parsifal; Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg; Lohengrin; and Hansel und Gretel.

To what extent do operas express the political and cultural ideas of their age? How do they reflect the composer's view of the changing relations among art, politics, and society? In this book John Bokina focuses on political aspects and meanings of operas from the baroque to postmodern period, showing the varied ways that operas become sensuous vehicles for the articulation of political ideas. Bokina begins with an analysis of Monteverdi's three extant operas, which address in an oblique way the political and ideological dualities of aristocratic rule in the seventeenth-century Italy. He then moves to Mozart's "Don Giovanni", which he views as a celebration of the demise of a predatory aristocracy. He presents Beethoven's "Fidelio" as an example of the political spirit of a revolution based on republican virtue, and Wagner's "Parsifal" as a utopian music drama that projects romantic anticapitalist ideals onto an imagined past. He shows that Strauss's "Elektra" and Schoenberg's "Erwartung" transform the traditional operatic depiction of madness by reflecting the emerging Freudian psychoanalysis of that era. And he argues that operas by Pfitzner, Hindemith, and Schoenberg explore the political roles of art and the artists, each couching contemporary conditions in an allegory about the fate of art in a historical period of transition. Finally, Bokina offers a reappraisal of Henze's "The Bassarids" as a political opera that confronts the promise and limits of the sensual-sexual revolt of the twentieth-century.

Wagner's Tristan has often--even by Lichtenberger--been described as a philosophic work; and as abstract thought or philosophy, it is said, is foreign to art, a work which admits it must be condemned. Let us first understand what is meant by philosophy. It is surely a train of thought in the mind of the spectator, not in the object which he contemplates. Anything in the world may be the subject of philosophic thought, or may suggest it; there is plenty of philosophy to be drawn from a daisy, but we do not therefore call a daisy a philosophic flower. So, too, we may philosophize about Wagner's Tristan, but the philosophy is our own; it is not in the work.

Found in this work are descriptions of the text and music of some of the most famous masterpieces. The opera is never more enjoyed than by a music lover who is incapable of criticism from lack of musical knowledge: music being first and last an emotional art; and as our emotions are refined it requires compositions of a more and more elevated character to appeal to them. The history of opera should be known and composers classified, just as it is desirable to know and to classify authors, painters, sculptors and actors. Contents: Balfe: The Bohemian Girl; Beethoven: Fidelio; Berlioz: The Damnation of Faust; Bizet: Carmen; DeKoven: Robin Hood; Flotow: Martha; Humperdinck: Hansel land Gretel; Mascagni: Cavalleria Rusticana; Meyerbeer: The Prophet; Mozart: The Magic Flute; Sullivan: Pinafore; Verdi: Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, Aida; Wagner: The Nibelung Ring, The Mastersingers of Nuremberg, Lohengrin.

This tremendous reference is in dictionary style for the easy reference and use by researchers, scholars, and any reader interested in the opera. It is an excellent source for looking up anything from specific data on a particular opera to which aria is connected with which opera. This volume is generously cross-referenced and should prove invaluable in answering many questions on the opera.