Giovanni Battista Rubini (1794-1854) was a legendary tenor and the first 19th-century non-castrati male singer to become an international star of opera. The previous two centuries had been the era of the castrati, with tenors and basses relegated to character and supporting roles in the operas of their time. Rubini stood apart because he not only matched the castrati in coloratura and pathos, but he also had an extraordinarily high voice. With Rubini's rise, and in his wake, several tenors came to sing roles written specifically for them by Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, and many other lesser-known bel canto composers. Signaling the end of the dominance of castrati on stage, this period would last some forty years until the advent of grand opera, Wagner, and Verdi and the appearance of the first so-called High C from the chest by Gilbert-Louis Duprez in 1837. Since then, the accepted tenor sound has followed the tradition epitomized by Enrico Caruso and, in our own era, Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo. Many composers, conductors, and performers would come to regard bel canto dramatic operas as decorative and vapid until Maria Callas and Tulio Serafin demonstrated the heights this genre of opera could reach. However, opera directors and opera performers of late who have expressed an interest in reviving selected masterpieces from the bel canto tradition have found themselves confronted with the problem of locating tenors versed in the vocal techniques necessary to carry the high tessituras. In Giovanni Battista Rubini and the Bel Canto Tenors: History and Technique, Dan H. Marek explores the extraordinary life of Rubini in order to frame this special period in the history of opera and connect the technique of the castrati who were among Rubini's instructors. Drawing on the work of Berton Coffin, Marek offers long-sought answers to the challenges presented by high tessitura of bel canto operas for tenors. To further assist working singers, Giovanni Battista Rubini and the Bel Canto Tenors includes over sixty pages of exercises written by Rubini himself before 1840, which Marek, for the first time ever, has adapted to acoustical phonetics. Professional singers, teachers and their students, vocal coaches, and opera conductors will find this work indispensable as the only English-language work on high tessitura for tenor and soprano singing.

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ++++ The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to ensure edition identification: ++++ Lucrezia Borgia: Melodramma In Un Prologo E Due Atti Gaetano Donizetti, Felice Romani

Originally published in 1925, the text for this edition of Semele was compiled from the 1710 edition of Congreve's works and the altered version adopted by Handel and published in 1762. The work was performed in this form at the New Theatre, Cambridge in February 1925. Lines omitted by the composer are printed in smaller type, and his interpolations are set within square brackets. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the works of Congreve and Handel.

Cynthia Verba's book explores the story of music's role in the French Enlightenment, focusing on dramatic expression in the musical tragedies of the composer-theorist Jean-Philippe Rameau. She reveals how his music achieves its highly moving effects through an interplay between rational design, especially tonal design, and the portrayal of feeling and how this results in a more nuanced portrayal of the heroine. Offering a new approach to understanding Rameau's role in the Enlightenment, Verba illuminates important aspects of the theory-practice relationship and shows how his music embraced Enlightenment values. At the heart of the study are three scene types that occur in all of Rameau's tragedies: confession of forbidden love, intense conflict and conflict resolution. In tracing changes in Rameau's treatment of these, Verba finds that while he maintained an allegiance to the traditional French operatic model, he constantly adapted it to accommodate his more enlightened views on musical expression.

From the very beginning of the nineteenth century, many elements of Spanish culture carried an air of 'exoticism' for the French-and nothing played more important of a role in shaping the French idea of Spain than the country's musical tradition. However, as Samuel Llano argues in Whose Spain?, perceptions and representations of Spanish musical identities changed in the early twentieth century, due to the emergence of the hispanistes. These specialists on Spanish music and culture, who wrote encyclopedic and 'scientific' articles on 'Spanish music,' strived to endow the world of Spanish music with a sense of authority and knowledge. Yet, the writings of those hispanistes and other music critics showed a highly sensationalist attitude, aimed at describing 'Spanish music' in a way that was instrumental to the interests of French musicians. At the same time, the Spanish fought to articulate their own identities through the creation and performance of new musical works. In this book, Llano analyzes the socio-political discourses underpinning critical and musicological descriptions of 'Spanish music' and the discourse's connection with French politics and culture. He also studies operas and other musical works for the stage as privileged sites for the production of Spanish musical identities, given the enhanced possibilities of performance for cultural and critical engagement. The study covers the period 1908 to 1929, when representations of 'Spanish music' in the writings of the hispaniste Henri Collet and other French musicians underwent several transformations, mostly sparked by the need to reformulate French identity during and after the First World War. Ultimately, Llano demonstrates that definitions of 'French' and 'Spanish' music were to some extent interdependent, and that the public performances of these pieces even helped the musical community in France to begein to reformulate their notions of 'Spanish music' and identity.

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.

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.

Known worldwide as a composer of symphonies and chamber music, Czech composer Antonin Dvorak declared toward the end of his life that his main love was writing operas. Written in 1900 at the height of Dvorak's creative powers, his fairy tale opera Rusalka is a masterpiece firmly established in the international repertory-from 2010 to 2012 alone, over 200 performances of 27 productions of the opera played in 21 European cities alone! Worldwide, music schools and summer programs have mounted the work, as well, reflecting not only the power of Dvorak's music but the lyricism and depth of Jaroslav Kvapil's Czech libretto, one of the greatest of all opera libretti, regardless of language. This book serves as an aid to anyone seeking to perform and gain a deeper understanding of this multi-layered opera, which so trenchantly asks what it means to be human, to love, and to be loved in return. In the first part, Czech music scholar Timothy Cheek offers a thorough review of Czech lyric diction and inflection, describes the characters and their vocal requirements, and supplies a synopsis of the plot, an elucidation of the layers of meaning in Kvapil's libretto, a section on musical style and dance elements, and a fascinating explanation of why such a remarkable work took so long to be embraced by Western audiences. In the second half, Cheek gives word-for-word and idiomatic English translations of the Czech libretto, including stage directions, along with the International Phonetic Alphabet for pronunciation. Rounding out the book are illustrations from the Prague National Theatre, New York Metropolitan Opera, and elsewhere, as well as an appendix listing recordings and videos. Rusalka: A Performance Guide with Translations and Pronunciation is written for singers, pianists, vocal coaches, conductors, stage directors, translators, and opera enthusiasts-anyone who wishes to perform the work, or who is simply moved and intrigued by this stunning opera.

With its powerful combination of music and theatre, opera is one of the most complex and yet immediate of all art forms. Once opera was studied only as 'a stepchild of musicology', but in the past two decades opera studies have experienced an explosion of energy with the introduction of new approaches drawn from disciplines such as social anthropology and performance studies to media theory, genre theory, gender studies and reception history. Written by leading scholars in opera studies today, this Companion offers a wide-ranging guide to a rapidly expanding field of study and new ways of thinking about a rich and intriguing art form, placing opera back at the centre of our understanding of Western culture over the past 400 years. This book gives lovers of opera as well as those studying the subject a comprehensive approach to the many facets of opera in the past and today.

Selected as one of the Best Music Books of 2010 by The Independent, here is a wonderful collection of 20 wide-ranging interviews with the preeminent opera singers, conductors, and directors working on and behind the stage today. Joshua Jampol invites opera-lovers to listen in as performers speak in frank terms about their strengths and weaknesses, conductors discuss the state of contemporary opera, and directors talk through the complexities involved in staging a successful production. Jampol has unprecedented access and the table of contents reads like a "who's who" of the global opera world, featuring Fleming, Domingo, Ramey, Villazon, Dessay, Conlon, Salonen, Nagano, Boulez, Carsen, Chereau, and more. Each interview highlights a distinctive voice speaking about his or her career path, first break, colleagues, major influences, audiences, critics, and all the diverse professions making up the emotional and extravagant world of the lyric arts. Jampol brings immense knowledge and a wonderful flair to these conversations, allowing his subjects to follow their thoughts wherever they lead, and revealing in the process a more intimate, reflective side of this constellation of operatic stars.

The Futurist opera Victory over the Sun, first staged in 1913 in St Petersburg, was a key event of the Russian avant-garde, notorious for its libretto, its unconventional score and its pioneering abstract sets and costumes designed by Kazimir Malevich. The iconic importance of Victory over the Sun as a theatrical event is universally acknowledged. This volume brings together the first fully annotated translation of the libretto of this 'anti-opera' and other important primary source materials, including the score, the set and costume designs and contemporary newspaper reviews. The second part of the volume provides a wide-ranging collection of interpretive essays which explore the artistic, literary and musical dimensions of the staging, its theatrical and historical context, its relationship to Italian Futurism, and its position within the Russian modernist movement. You can read more about the Pushkin House event on 22 November 2012 on the Russian Art and Culture website by following this link http:// www.russianartandculture.com/victory-over-sun-book-launch-pushkin-house/ (will open in a new window). And you can see and hear more in Alexander Kan's report on the BBC Russian site by following this link http://www.bbc.co.uk/russian/multimedia/2012/11/121127_futuristic_dinner.shtml (will open in a new window). In 1913, the year in which the Romanovs celebrated their tercentenary, the premieres of two revolutionary theatrical events brought Russian artists to the forefront of the European avant-garde. With its nonsensical 'trans-sense' libretto by Aleksei Kruchenykh and Velimir Khlebnikov, experimental score by Mikhail Matiushin and pioneering abstract sets and costumes by Kazimir Malevich, the Futurist opera Victory over the Sun may be compared in terms of its radical assault on artistic convention to Igor Stravinsky's ballet The Rite of Spring. This interdisciplinary volume brings together a distinguished team of international scholars to discuss the artistic significance of this epoch-making 'anti-opera', which is now recognised as a key event of avant-garde cultural production, and a turning point in stage history. The book offers new insight into the theatre practice and history of Russian Futurist performance, which, to date, has received little attention from theatre scholars despite its influence on the development of European drama in the twentieth century. As well as an annotated translation of the libretto, the book includes reproductions of the score and contemporary newspaper reviews. Illustrated throughout, and with a colour plate section containing twenty-seven colour images of costume designs, posters and other work by the abstract artist Kazimir Malevich.

All modern artists have had to market themselves in some way. Richard Wagner may just have done it better than anyone else. In a self-promotional effort that began around 1840 in Paris, and lasted for the remainder of his career, Wagner claimed convincingly that he was the most German composer ever and the true successor of Beethoven. More significantly, he was an opera composer who declared that he was not composing operas. Instead, during the 1850s, he mapped out a new direction, conceiving of works that would break with tradition and be literally 'brand new'. This is the first study to examine the innovative ways in which Wagner made himself a celebrity, promoting himself using every means available: autobiography, journal articles, short stories, newspaper announcements, letters, even his operas themselves. Vazsonyi reveals how Wagner created a niche for his works in the crowded opera market that continues to be unique.

This book was first published in 2009. This fascinating study of ethnic theatrical representation provides original perspectives on the cultural milieu, compositional strategies and operatic legacy of Joseph Haydn. The portrayal of Jews changed markedly during the composer's lifetime. Before the Enlightenment, when Jews were treated as a people apart, physical infirmities and other markers of 'difference' were frequently caricatured on the comedic stage. However, when society began to debate the 'Jewish Question' - understood in the later eighteenth century as how best to integrate Jews into society as productive citizens - theatrical representations became more sympathetic. As Caryl Clark describes, Haydn had many opportunities to observe Jews in his working environments in Vienna and Eisenstadt, and incorporated Jewish stereotypes in two early works. An understanding of Haydn's evolving approach to ethnic representation on the stage provides deeper insight into the composer's iconic wit and humanity, and to the development of opera as a cultural art form across the centuries.

Peking opera is one of the most distinctive traditions in Chinese culture - a tradition that can seem mysterious and complex to foreign eyes. In this illustrated introduction, Xu Chengbei explains the colourful make up, intricate costumes, characters, staging, stories and music associated with Peking opera, and discusses the origins and development of this unique performance art. Peking Opera is an essential starting point for all those interested in this intriguing part of China's cultural heritage.

Ombra is the term which applies to an operatic scene involving the appearance of an oracle or demon, witches, or ghosts. Such scenes can be traced back to the early days of opera and were commonplace in the seventeenth century in Italy and France. Operas based on the legends of Orpheus, Iphigenia, and Alcestis provide numerous examples of ombra and extend well into the eighteenth century. Clive McClelland's Ombra: Supernatural Music in the Eighteenth Century is an in-depth examination of ombra and is many influences on classical music performance. McClelland reveals that ombra scenes proved popular with audiences not only because of the special stage effects employed, but also due to increasing use of awe-inspiring musical effects. By the end of the eighteenth century the scenes had come to be associated with an elaborate set of musical features including slow, sustained writing, the use of flat keys, angular melodic lines, chromaticism and dissonance, dotted rhythms and syncopation, tremolando effects, unexpected harmonic progressions, and unusual instrumentation, especially involving trombones. It is clearly distinct from other styles that exhibit some of these characteristics, such as the so-called 'Sturm und Drang' or 'Fantasia.' Futhermore, parallels can be drawn between these features and Edmund Burke's 'sublime of terror, ' thus placing ombra music on an important position in the context of eighteenth-century aesthetic theory.

What is opera and how does it work? How has this dramatic form developed and what is its relevance in the modern world? Perfect for music students and opera-goers, this introductory guide addresses these questions and many more, exploring opera as a complete theatrical experience. Organised chronologically and avoiding technical musical terminology, the book clearly demonstrates how opera reflected and reacted to changes in the world around it. A special feature of the volume is the inclusion of illustrative tables throughout. These provide detailed, easy to follow analysis of arias, scenes and acts; visual guides to historical movements; and chronologies relating to genres and individual composers' works. Overall, the book fosters an understanding of opera as a living form as it encounters and uses material from an ever expanding repertoire in time, place and culture.

Since its beginnings, opera has depended on recognition as a central aspect of both plot and theme. Though a standard feature of opera, recognition - a moment of new awareness that brings about a crucial reversal in the action - has been largely neglected in opera studies. In Recognition in Mozart's Operas, musicologist Jessica Waldoff draws on a broad base of critical thought on recognition from Aristotle to Terence Cave to explore the essential role it plays in Mozart's operas. The result is a fresh approach to the familiar question of opera as drama and a persuasive new reading of Mozart's operas.

"I had a dream and it was fulfilled by meeting with Benny, Bjorn and Agnetha." ANNI-FRID LYNGSTAD Abba's was an extraordinary journey through the pages of rock history - it took them from throwaway Eurovision turn to highly respected pop icons. Their story has everything; beautiful girls with incredible voices, love, marriages, break ups, divorces, not to mention some of the most memorable outfits ever seen on a stage. This indispensable book provides fans of the band with a perfect career retrospective; it looks beyond the glitz and the glamour to get to the heart of what made Abba so special. The book features a biography of Abba, along with in-depth interviews with Bjorn Again founder Rod Leissle, record producer Pip Williams, music journalist Hugh Fielder and Anni-Frid Lyngstad herself, who give unique insights into what it was like to work and socialise with the one of the hottest properties the pop industry had ever seen. The book also includes a detailed track-by-track analysis of all Abba's studio releases.

Human sacrifice has fascinated Western writers since the beginnings of European literature. It is prominent in Greek epic and tragedy, and returned to haunt writers after the discovery of the Aztec mass sacrifices. It has been treated by some of the greatest creative geniuses, including Shakespeare and Wagner, and was a major topic in the works of many Modernists, such as D. H. Lawrence and Stravinsky. In literature, human sacrifice is often used to express a writer's reaction to the residue of barbarism in his own culture. The meaning attached to the theme therefore changes profoundly from one period to another, yet it remains as timely an image of cultural collapse as it did over two thousand years ago. Drawing on sources from literature and music, in this 2007 book Derek Hughes examines the representation of human sacrifice in Western culture from The Iliad to the invasion of Iraq.

This famous work has had a chequered performance history, and Professor Laurel E. Fay points out that the interpretation of the opera depends on which edition is used. Robert Oldani introduces the "Boris problem": Pushkin's play was not an obvious choice for a young composer, since it had been banned for forty years, and it is the Russian people, rather than any single character, who is the protagonist. Alex de Jonge examines its uniquely Russian character and notes the unsettling parallels of the history of old Russia with today. Nigel Osborne's comparison of the Rimsky-Korsakov and Mussorgsky versions highlights their individual qualities. Contents: Looking into 'Boris Godunov', Robert W. Oldani; A Historical Introduction, Nicholas John; The Drama and Music of 'Boris', Laurel E. Fay; Around 'Boris Godunov', Alex de Jonge; Boris: prince or peasant?, Nigel Osborne; Boris Godunov: Russian libretto (transliterated), Modest Mussorgsky; Boris Godunov: English translation by David Lloyd-Jones

Jenny Lind (1820-87) was one of Europe's most famous opera singers. Known as the 'Swedish Nightingale', she first rose to prominence in an 1838 performance of Weber's Freischutz. Despite her immense success over the next ten years, she retired from the stage at the age of twenty-nine. Seeking financial security to pursue her charitable interests, in 1850 she accepted the invitation of impresario P. T. Barnum to undertake a tour of the United States; this was another succession of triumphs. Henry Scott Holland (1847-1918), the theologian and social reformer, and music writer William Smith Rockstro (1823-95) used Lind's own documents, letters and diaries as the basis of this two-volume memoir, published in 1891, which focuses on the first thirty-one years of her life. Volume 1 covers Lind's Swedish childhood and early singing career, and a brief but critical period when she suffered damage to her vocal cords.

Jenny Lind (1820-87) was one of Europe's most famous opera singers. Known as the 'Swedish Nightingale', she first rose to prominence in an 1838 performance of Weber's Freischutz. Despite her immense success over the next ten years, she retired from the stage at the age of twenty-nine. Seeking financial security to pursue her charitable interests, in 1850 she accepted the invitation of impresario P. T. Barnum to undertake a tour of the United States; this was another succession of triumphs. Henry Scott Holland (1847-1918), the theologian and social reformer, and music writer William Smith Rockstro (1823-95) used Lind's own documents, letters and diaries as the basis of this two-volume memoir, published in 1891, which focuses on the first thirty-one years of her life. Volume 2 discusses some of Lind's most memorable performances in Europe and the reasons for her first retirement; it ends with her departure for America.