Memorable melodies and fanciful worlds - the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan remain as popular today as when they were first performed. This Companion provides a timely guide to the history and development of the collaboration between the two men, including a fresh examination of the many myths and half-truths surrounding their relationship. Written by an international team of specialists, the volume features a personal account from film director Mike Leigh on his connection with the Savoy Operas and the creation of his film Topsy-Turvy. Starting with the early history of the operatic stage in Britain, the Companion places the operas in their theatrical and musical context, investigating the amateur performing tradition, providing new perspectives on the famous patter songs and analysing their dramatic and operatic potential. Perfect for enthusiasts, performers and students of Gilbert and Sullivan's enduring work, the book examines their legacy and looks forward to the future.

John Adams's opera, Nixon in China, is one of the most frequently performed operas in the contemporary literature. Timothy A. Johnson illuminates the opera and enhances listeners' and scholars' appreciation for this landmark work. This music-analytical guide presents a detailed, in-depth analysis of the music tied to historical and political contexts. The opera captures an important moment in history and in international relations, and a close study of it from an interdisciplinary perspective provides fresh, compelling insights about the opera. The music analysis takes a neo-Riemannian approach to harmony and to large-scale harmonic connections. Musical metaphors drawn between harmonies and their dramatic contexts enrich this approach. Motivic analysis reveals interweaving associations between the characters, based on melodic content. Analysis of rhythm and meter focuses on Adams's frequent use of grouping and displacement dissonances to propel the music forward or to illustrate the libretto. The book shows how the historical depiction in the opera is accurate, yet enriched by this operatic adaptation. The language of the opera is true to its source, but more evocative than the words spoken in 1972-due to Alice Goodman's marvelous, poetic libretto. And the music transcends its repetitive shell to become a hierarchically-rich and musically-compelling achievement.

The genre of melodrame A grand spectacle that emerged in the boulevard theatres of Paris in the 1790s - and which was quickly exported abroad - expressed the moral struggle between good and evil through a drama of heightened emotions. Physical gesture, mise en scene and music were as important in communicating meaning and passion as spoken dialogue. The premise of this volume is the idea that the melodramatic aesthetic is central to our understanding of nineteenth-century music drama, broadly defined as spoken plays with music, operas and other hybrid genres that combine music with text and/or image. This relationship is examined closely, and its evolution in the twentieth century in selected operas, musicals and films is understood as an extension of this nineteenth-century aesthetic. The book therefore develops our understanding of opera in the context of melodrama's broader influence on musical culture during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This book will appeal to those interested in film studies, drama, theatre and modern languages as well as music and opera.

With his last opera Mozart created a piece of theatre which defies categorization. In theory it is a Singspiel, a mixture of songs and dialogue, in which the spectacular effects and comedy fit naturally: they appeal today as much as they did when it first opened in a popular Viennese theatre two hundred years ago. Rodney Milnes recalls some of the other pieces playing at the time, such as Kaspar the Bassonist, or The Magic Zither. On the other hand, it belongs to a tradition of Enlightenment texts in which a young prince, destined to be a ruler, learns from his adventures how to behave wisely as a social being. This is a re-working of the Orpheus myth, in the context of the Age of Reason and Freemasonry. David Cairns describes the many beauties of the score in loving detail, taking the reader through the complex plot, to clarify and interpret it. Famous commentaries by Goethe, Berlioz, E.T.A. Hoffmann and G.B. Shaw reveal their enthusiasm for the opera. A useful and unusual feature of this guide is the complete dialogue, in German with an English translation, which is often badly cut in performance. Like so many fairy tales, The Magic Flute repays careful attention: its music has a charm to inspire the child in every listener. Contents: Synopsis; 'Singspiel and Symbolism', Rodney Milnes; 'A Vision of Reconciliation' David Cairns; 'A Public for Mozart's Last Opera' Nicholas John; Die Zauberfloete: Libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder and Carl Ludwig Giesecke; The Magic Flute: Lyrics by Michael Geliot, Dialogue by Anthony Besch

How did Wagner's experiences in Paris influence his works and social character? And how does his sometime desire for recognition by the French cultural establishment square with his German national identity and with the related idea of a universally valid art? Friedrich Nietzsche more than once claimed that Wagner's only true home was in Paris. This book is the first major study to trace Wagner's relationship with Paris from his first sojourn there (1839-1842) to the Paris Tannhauser (1861). How did Wagner's experiences in Paris influence his works and social character? How does his sometime desire for recognition by the French cultural establishment square with his German national identity and with the related idea of a universally valid art? This book presents Wagner's perennial ambition of an international operatic success in the "capital city of the nineteenth century" and the paradoxical consequences of that ambition upon its failure. Through an examination of previously neglected source materials, the book engages with ideas in the so-called "Wagner debate" as an ongoing philosophical project that tries to come to terms with the composer's Germanness. The book is in three main parts arranged broadly in chronological sequence. The first considers Wagner's earliest years in Paris, focusing on his own French-language drafts of Das Liebesverbot and Der fliegende Hollander. The second part explores his stance towards Paris "at a distance" following his return to Saxony and subsequent political exile. Arriving at Wagner's most often discussed "Paris period" (1859-61), the third part interrogates the concert performances under the composer's direction at the Theatre-Italien and revisionist aspects of their reception. JEREMY COLEMAN is Lecturer in Music in the School of Performing Arts, Universityof Malta.

This study looks at nineteenth - and early twentieth-century opera as part of a culture which produced fascism as a crisis-state, and threatened to extinguish the genre as an influential and contemporary high form of art altogether. Jeremy Tambling highlights the themes of the cultural crisis through a detailed discussion of some dozen operas and a general overview of the works of Wagner, Verdi, Puccini, Strauss, and others, drawing on the writings of Nietzsche, Adorno, Benjamin, and Heidegger, for an understanding of the ideological background. Reading fascism as a political, intellectual, and psychological phenomenon, the author draws on the works of Bataille, Theweleit, and Kristeva, for discussion of proto-fascist and fascist thought, and for its relation to gender-politics. Resisting the cliches about Wagner or Strauss's relationship to the Third Reich, Tambling takes the opera out the hermetically sealed-off state in which it is normally discussed, and presents it as both complicit in, and in opposition to, the reactionary and regressive pressures that made up the `culture of fascism', and those that tried to make opera part of the `fascism of culture'.

There can be little doubt that opera and emotion are inextricably linked. From dramatic plots driven by energetic producers and directors to the conflicts and triumphs experienced by all associated with opera's staging to the reactions and critiques of audience members, emotion is omnipresent in opera. Yet few contemplate the impact that the customary cultural practices of specific times and places have upon opera's ability to move emotions. Taking Australia as a case study, this two-volume collection of extended essays demonstrates that emotional experiences, discourses, displays and expressions do not share universal significance but are at least partly produced, defined, and regulated by culture. Spanning approximately 170 years of opera production in Australia, the authors show how the emotions associated with the specific cultural context of a nation steeped in egalitarian aspirations and marked by increasing levels of multiculturalism have adjusted to changing cultural and social contexts across time. Volume I adopts an historical, predominantly nineteenth-century perspective, while Volume II applies historical, musicological, and ethnological approaches to discuss subsequent Australian operas and opera productions through to the twenty-first century. With final chapters pulling threads from the two volumes together, Opera, Emotion, and the Antipodes establishes a model for constructing emotion history from multiple disciplinary perspectives.

Opera audiences around the world are swept away by the magnificent voices of African-American singers like Leontyne Price, Kathleen Battle, and Jessye Norman. But growth opportunities for African-American opera singers are comparatively recent. Thus, Cheatham's work is especially timely and relevant. He engages in conversations with ten prominent African-American operatic artists: Carmen deLavallade, Andrew Frierson, Everett Lee, Sylvia Olden Lee, Dorothy Rudd Moore, Benjamin Matthews, Wayne Sanders, George Shirley, Shirley Verrett, and William Warfield. In their conversations with Cheatham, these artists candidly discuss the uniqueness of being African-American within the operatic mainstream. They also articulate their inspiration, their dedication, and their travails as they rose within the opera world. With photographs.

Richard Wagner: A Research and Information Guide is an annotated bibliography concerning both the nature of primary sources related to the composer and the scope and significance of the secondary sources which deal with him, his compositions, and his influence as a composer and performer.

For the last 25 years Jonathan Veira has been a star of the world of opera, handling a wide range of character parts as a comic baritone. A virtuoso musician and delightful raconteur, with skills on keyboard and guitar, he also tours with an extremely popular one man show. He is also a deeply committed Christian. He is a regular guest at Spring Harvest, where his shows are always crammed to capacity. In 2012 he will be performing throughout SH. Jonathan Veira appears regularly at Glyndebourne and other top operatic venues, and has made many successful recordings with Elevation and other labels: he has been conducted by Bernard Haitink. He has a wonderful repertoire of stories, and is a keen observer of the foibles of the operatic world. For more than 20 years he has been a frequent guest on BBC Songs of Praise and a regular broadcaster on BBC radio. Finding My Voice takes you behind the scenes, the curtains and the shrubbery to reveal the man within the music.

Profusely illustrated. Reproductions of paintings and engravings in the period of a given opera's historical setting illuminate the author's interpretations.

Bedrich Smetana's comic opera Prodana nevesta/The Bartered Bride is cherished as the Czech national opera and is the most popular Czech opera in the world. As performances in English-speaking countries have moved from German to English back to the original Czech, The Bartered Bride - Prodana nevesta: Performance Guide with Translations and Pronunciation fills the need for an accessible, detailed guide to singing the work in Czech, as well as being valuable for those wishing to make or improve on an English singing translation. Timothy Cheek provides idiomatic and word-for-word translations of the complete libretto for The Bartered Bride, including the International Phonetic Alphabet for Czech pronunciation, as well as translations of stage and musical directions. In addition, he offers an extensive performance history, a synopsis of the opera, general musical comments, a discussion of the roles, notes on the dances and choreographers, and an overview of Czech pronunciation and inflection. Appendixes list the Czech editions and English singing translations of the opera, as well as recordings on LP, CD, DVD, and film. With a sampling of historical and recent photos from opera productions, this guide is indispensable for singers and coaches, conductors and stage directors, and amateurs and professionals.

Making use of archival resources in the United Kingdom and the United States, Regina B. Oost examines advertisements, promotional materials, and programs, as well as letters, diaries, and account books, to reconstruct the ways in which Richard D'Oyly Carte, W.S. Gilbert, and Arthur Sullivan attracted and shaped the expectations of theatergoers. Her findings place the Savoy operas in the context of other West End productions, considering similarities between Carte's promotional methods and those of managers Henry Irving, John Hollingshead, and Marie and Squire Bancroft. While all of these managers astutely understood patronage of a middle-class audience to be key to their success, the Savoy collaborators made strategic use of circumstances unique to their situation to distinguish Gilbert and Sullivan operas from contemporary theatrical fare. From Trial by Jury (1875) through The Grand Duke (1896), the Savoy operas celebrated the commodity culture beloved of the urban middle classes, validated a moral code that secured the social privileges audience members cherished, and ultimately provided a new model of British national identity that replaced the agrarian ideal espoused by earlier generations. Written in admirably accessible and jargon-free prose, Oost's book will appeal to scholars of theater history, literature, music, and popular culture, as well as general readers interested in Gilbert and Sullivan and the history of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.

Designed as a companion volume to 2008's ""Inside the Ring"", which focused on the four operas comprising Richard Wagner's ""Der Ring des Nibelungen"", this new volume features more than a dozen original essays focusing on all of Wagner's non-Ring operas. Part one looks at the individual operas, including ""Der Fliegende Hollander"", ""Tannhauser"", ""Lohengrin"", ""Tristan und Isolde"", ""Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg"", and ""Parsifal"". Part two reveals the connections between Wagnerian opera and other arts, including dance, filmmaking, and written fiction. Finally, Part three examines Wagner's operas in performance, featuring interviews with mezzosoprano Michelle DeYoung and heldentenor Ben Heppner, both well-known for their Wagnerian performances. The book also includes several photographs from current productions by the Metropolitan Opera and other opera companies, along with a recommended discography of performances.

This comprehensive bibliography and research guide details all the works currently available on Vincenzo Bellini, the Italian opera composer best known for his work Norma, which is still regularly performed today at Covent Garden and by regional opera companies. 2001, the bicentennial anniversary of Bellini's death, saw several concerts and recordings of his work, raising his academic profile. This volume aims to meet the research needs of all students of Bellini in particular.

Gaetano Donizetti: A Research and Information Guide offers an annotated reference guide to the life and works of this important Italian opera composer. The book opens with a complete chronology of Donizetti's life (1797-1848) and career, relating it to contemporary events. The balance of the book details secondary resources and other works, including general sources, catalogs, correspondence, biographical sources, critical works; production/review sources, singers and theaters, and the individual operas.

This is the first book for a century to explore the development of French opera with spoken dialogue from its beginnings. Musical comedy in this form came in different styles and formed a distinct genre of opera, whose history has been obscured by neglect. Its songs were performed in private homes, where operas themselves were also given. The subject-matter was far wider in scope than is normally thought, with news stories and political themes finding their way onto the popular stage. In this book, David Charlton describes the comedic and musical nature of eighteenth-century popular French opera, considering topics such as Gherardi's theatre, Fair Theatre and the 'musico-dramatic art' created in the mid-eighteenth century. Performance practices, singers, audience experiences and theatre staging are included, as well as a pioneering account of the formation of a core of 'canonical' popular works.

Why, in the dying days of the Napoleonic Empire, did half of Paris turn out for the funeral of a composer? The death of Andre Ernest Modeste Gretry in 1813 was one of the sensations of the age, setting off months of tear-stained commemorations, reminiscences and revivals of his work. To understand this singular event, this interdisciplinary study looks back to Gretry's earliest encounters with the French public during the 1760s and 1770s, seeking the roots of his reputation in the reactions of his listeners. The result is not simply an exploration of the relationship between a musician and his audiences, but of developments in musical thought and discursive culture, and of the formation of public opinion over a period of intense social and political change. The core of Gretry's appeal was his mastery of song. Distinctive, direct and memorable, his melodies were exported out of the opera house into every corner of French life, serving as folkloristic tokens of celebration and solidarity, longing and regret. Gretry's attention to the subjectivity of his audiences had a profound effect on operatic culture, forging a new sense of democratic collaboration between composer and listener. This study provides a reassessment of Gretry's work and musical thought, positioning him as a major figure who linked the culture of feeling and the culture of reason - and who paved the way for Romantic notions of spectatorial absorption and the power of music.

Through historical and contemporary examples, this book critically explores the relevance and expressions of multicultural representation in western European operatic genres in the modern world. It reveals their approaches to reflecting identity, transmitting meaning, and inspiring creation, as well as the ambiguities and contradictions that occur across the time and place(s) of their performance. This collection brings academic researchers in opera studies into conversation with previously unheard voices of performers, critics, and creators to speak to issues of race, ethnicity, and culture in the genre. Together, they deliver a powerful critique of the perpetuation of the values and practices of dominant cultures in operatic representations of intercultural encounters. Essays accordingly cross methodological boundaries in order to focus on a central issue in the emerging field of coloniality: the hierarchies of social and political power that include the legacy of racialized practices. In theorizing coloniality through intercultural exchange in opera, authors explore a range of topics and case studies that involve immigrant, indigenous, exoticist, and other cultural representations and consider a broad repertoire that includes lesser-known Canadian operas, Chinese- and African-American performances, as well as works by Haydn, Strauss, Puccini, and Wagner, and in performances spanning three continents and over two centuries. In these ways, the collection contributes to the development of a more integrated understanding of the interdisciplinary fields inherent in opera, including musicology, sociology, anthropology, and others connected to Theatre, Gender, and Cultural Studies.

This book tells the story of how a regional Chinese theatrical form, Shanghai Yue Opera, evolved from the all-male 'beggar's song' of the early twentieth century to become the largest all-female opera form in the nation, only to face increasing pressure to survive under Chinese political and economic reforms in the new millennium. Previous publications have focused mainly on the historical development of Chinese theatre, with emphasis placed on Beijing opera. This is the first book to take an interdisciplinary approach to the story of the Shanghai Yue Opera, bringing history, arts management, central and regional government policy, urbanisation, gender, media, and theatre artistic development in one. Through the story of the Shanghai Yue Opera House market reform this book facilitates an understanding of the complex Chinese political economic situation in post-socialist China. This book suggests that as state art institutions are key organs of the Communist party gaining legitimacy, the vigorous evolution and struggle of the Shanghai Yue Opera house in fact directly mirrors the Communist Party internal turmoil in the new millennium to gain its own legitimacy and survival.

Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791-1864) was a great musical dramatist in his own right. The fame of his operas rests on his radical treatment of form, his development of scenic complexes and greater plasticity of structure and melody, his dynamic use of the orchestra, and close attention to all aspects of presentation and production, all of which set new standards in Romantic opera and dramaturgy. This book carries forward the process of rediscovery and reassessment of Meyerbeer's art "including not just his famous French operas, but also his German and Italian ones"placing them in the context of his entire dramatic oeuvre, including his ballets, oratorios, cantatas and incidental music. From Meyerbeer's first stage presentation in 1810 to his great posthumous accolade in 1865, some 24 works mark the unfolding of this life lived for dramatic music. The reputation of the famous four grand operas may well live on in the public consciousness, but the other works remain largely unknown. This book provides an approachable introduction to them. The works have been divided into their generic types for quick reference and helpful association, and placed within the context of the composer's life and artistic development. Each section unfolds a brief history of the work's origins, an account of the plot, a critical survey of some of its musical characteristics, and a record of its performance history. Robert Letellier examines each work from a dramaturgical view point, including the essential"often challenging"philosophical and historical elements in the scenarios, and how these concepts were translated musically onto the stage. A series of portraits and stage iconography assist in bringing the works to life.

Michael Ewans explores how classical Greek tragedy and epic poetry have been appropriated in opera, through eight selected case studies. These range from Monteverdi's Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria, drawn from Homer's Odyssey, to Mark-Antony Turnage's Greek, based on Sophocles's Oedipus the King. Choices have been based on an understanding that the relationship between each of the operas and their Greek source texts raise significant issues, involving an examination of the process by which the librettist creates a new text for the opera, and the crucial insights into the nature of the drama that are bestowed by the composer's musical setting. Ewans examines the issues through a comparative analysis of significant divergences of plot, character and dramatic strategy between source text, libretto and opera.

Felice Giardini and Professional Music Culture in Mid-Eighteenth-Century London explores Giardini's influence on British musical life through his multifaceted career as performer, teacher, composer, concert promoter and opera impresario. The crux of the study is a detailed account of Giardini's partnership with the music seller/publisher John Cox during the 1750s, presented using new biographical information which contextualizes their business dealings and subsequent disaccord. The resulting litigation, the details of which have only recently come to light, is explored here via a complex set of archival materials. The findings offer new information about the economics of professional music culture at the time, including detailed figures for performers' fees, the printing and binding of music scores, the charges arising from the administration of concerts and operas, the sale, hire and repair of various instruments and the cost of what today we would call intellectual property rights. This is a fascinating study for musicologists and followers of Giardini, as well as for readers with an interest in classical music, social history and legal history.

Wagner's Tristan und Isolde occupies a singular position in the history of Western culture. What Nietzsche called the 'sweet and terrible infinity' of its basic nexus of longing and death has fascinated audiences since its first performance in 1865. At the same time, its advanced harmonic language, immediately announced by the opening 'Tristan chord', marks a defining moment in the evolution of modern music. This accessible handbook brings together seven leading international writers to discuss the opera's genesis and the libretto's relationship to late Romantic literary concerns, present an analysis of the Prelude, the music of the drama itself, and Wagner's innovative use of instrumental timbre, and illustrate the production history and reception of the music-drama into the twenty-first century. The book includes the first English translation of Wagner's draft prose of the libretto, a detailed discussion of Wagner's orchestration, and rare pictures from important and influential productions.

Born in Ujpest, Hungary, in 1919, George Jellinek began his musical career playing violin with gypsies in the family's garden restaurant. He spent his adolescence doing much the same, honing his talent and enriching his own musical education with frequent trips to the Hungarian Royal Opera House. But when Hitler and Chamberlain signed the Munich Pact in 1938, Jellinek's quiet life was shattered. How the exiled teenager survived World War II, worked his way up from a poor Hungarian immigrant in Cuba and became one of the most important and influential musical administrators in New York is an unconventional but truly American success story. This memoir documents the inspiring life of George Jellinek, beginning with his childhood in his beloved Hungary. The crisis of World War II soon invaded his life and, leaving behind his family and homeland, he fled west. Having been finally allowed to enter the United States, he was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1942, obligated to bear arms against the country of his birth. This ironic turn of events culminated in his firsthand role in the capture of Ferenc Szalasi, the leader of Hungary's Hitlerite faction. The latter half of the book reveals how music helped Jellinek piece back together his broken life in America. After rising to the post of musical director for radio station WQXR, he went on to become the producer and host of The Vocal Scene. His 36 years with that program established it as a revered fixture of New York's opera life. The epilogue documents the day on which Hungary's president bestowed upon Jellinek the Knight's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary.