0
Your cart

Your cart is empty

Browse All Departments
Price
  • R50 - R100 (2)
  • R100 - R250 (45)
  • R250 - R500 (208)
  • R500+ (1,238)
  • -
Status
Format
Author / Contributor
Publisher

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

Affect in Social Thinking and Behavior (Paperback): Joseph P. Forgas Affect in Social Thinking and Behavior (Paperback)
Joseph P. Forgas
R1,795 Discovery Miles 17 950 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

The role of affect in how people think and behave in social situations has been a source of fascination to laymen and philosophers since time immemorial. Surprisingly, most of what we know about the role of feelings in social thinking and behavior has been discovered only during the last two decades. Affect in Social Thinking and Behavior reviews and integrates the most recent research and theories on this exciting topic, and features original contributions reviewing key areas of affect research from leading researchers active in the area. The book covers fundamental issues, such as the nature and relationship between affect and cognition, as well as chapters that deal with the cognitive antecedents of emotion, and the consequences of affect for social cognition and behavior. This volume offers a highly integrated and comprehensive coverage of this field, and is suitable as a core textbook in advanced courses dealing with the role of affect in social cognition and behavior.

The Opera Stage of Sarah Caldwell - A Directing Philosophy in Practice (Paperback): Kristina Bendikas The Opera Stage of Sarah Caldwell - A Directing Philosophy in Practice (Paperback)
Kristina Bendikas
R855 Discovery Miles 8 550 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Sarah Caldwell, the leader of the Opera Company of Boston from 1958-1990, was a groundbreaking and idiosyncratic woman who established her own career as a composer and stage director in an environment resistant to change. This book investigates her choices as an opera director, her influences, her philosophies, and her methods, and situates her work within the history of opera in America. Though she is remembered primarily as a conductor, her passion, and her greater influence on American opera, was through stage directing. With a repertoire that included ground-breaking interpretations of works such as Nono's Intolleranza 1960, Prokofiev's War and Peace, and Bernstein's Mass, Caldwell continually pushed her own artistic limits, provoked critics, intrigued audiences, and challenged the status quo of opera production. Her passion for opera, her creative use of new technology and her influence in bringing opera to all sectors of American society, culminated in 1997 when she was awarded the National Medal of Arts for her work as a pioneering woman in the American musical landscape, and a tireless and innovative arts entrepreneur.

Art, Theatre, and Opera in Paris, 1750-1850 - Exchanges and Tensions (Hardcover, New Ed): Richard Wrigley Art, Theatre, and Opera in Paris, 1750-1850 - Exchanges and Tensions (Hardcover, New Ed)
Richard Wrigley
R4,505 Discovery Miles 45 050 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Art, Theatre, and Opera in Paris, 1750-1850: Exchanges and Tensions maps some of the many complex and vivid connections between art, theatre, and opera in a period of dramatic and challenging historical change, thereby deepening an understanding of familiar (and less familiar) artworks, practices, and critical strategies in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Throughout this period, new types of subject matter were shared, fostering both creative connections and reflection on matters of decorum, legibility, pictorial, and dramatic structure. Correspondances were at work on several levels: conception, design, and critical judgement. In a time of vigorous social, political, and cultural contestation, the status and role of the arts and their interrelation came to be a matter of passionate public scrutiny. Scholars from art history, French theatre studies, and musicology trace some of those connections and clashes, making visible the intimately interwoven and entangled world of the arts. Protagonists include Diderot, Sedaine, Jacques-Louis David, Ignace-Eugene-Marie Degotti, Marie Malibran, Paul Delaroche, Casimir Delavigne, Marie Dorval, the 'Bleeding Nun' from Lewis's The Monk, the Comedie-Francaise and Etienne-Jean Delecluze.

Sing for Your Life - A Story of Race, Music, and Family (Paperback): Daniel Bergner Sing for Your Life - A Story of Race, Music, and Family (Paperback)
Daniel Bergner
R412 R385 Discovery Miles 3 850 Save R27 (7%) Ships in 18 - 22 working days
Dissonance in the Republic of Letters - The Querelle Des Gluckistes Et Des Piccinnistes (Hardcover): Mark Darlow Dissonance in the Republic of Letters - The Querelle Des Gluckistes Et Des Piccinnistes (Hardcover)
Mark Darlow
R1,821 Discovery Miles 18 210 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Eighteenth-century French cultural life was often characterised by quarrels, and the arrival of Viennese composer Christoph Wilibald Gluck in Paris in 1774 was no exception, sparking a five-year pamphlet and press controversy which featured a rival Neapolitan composer, Niccolo Piccinni. However, as this study shows, the Glick-Piccinni controversy was about far more than which composer was better suited to lead French operatic reform.

Narratives of Identity in Alban Berg's "Lulu" (Hardcover): Silvio dos Santos Narratives of Identity in Alban Berg's "Lulu" (Hardcover)
Silvio dos Santos
R3,046 Discovery Miles 30 460 Ships in 18 - 22 working days

This book explores the crossroads between autobiographical narratives and musical composition in Alban Berg's Lulu, unveiling aspects of encoded social customs, gender identity, and personal experiences within musical structures. Exploring the crossroads between autobiographical narrative and musical composition, this book examines Berg's transformation of Frank Wedekind's Erdgeist and Die Buchse der Pandora -- the plays used in the formationof the libretto for Lulu -- according to notions of gender identity, social customs, and the aesthetics of modernity in the Vienna of the 1920s and 1930s. While Berg modernized several aspects of the plays and incorporatedserial techniques of composition from Arnold Schoenberg, he never let go of the idealistic Wagnerian perspectives of his youth. In fact, he went as far as reconfiguring aspects of Richard Wagner's life as an ideal identity to beplayed out in the compositional process. In composing the opera, Berg also reflected on the most important cultural figures in fin-de-siecle Vienna that affected his worldview, including Karl Kraus, Emil Lucka, Otto Weininger, andothers. Combining analysis of Berg's correspondence, numerous sketches for Lulu, and the finished work with interpretive models drawn from cultural studies and philosophy, this book elucidates the ways in which Berg grappled at the end of his life with his self-image as an "incorrigible romantic," and explains aspects of his musical language that have been considered strange or anomalous in Berg scholarship. Silvio J. dos Santos isassistant professor of musicology at the University of Florida.

Robert Saxton: Caritas (Hardcover, New Ed): Wyndham Thomas Robert Saxton: Caritas (Hardcover, New Ed)
Wyndham Thomas
R4,491 Discovery Miles 44 910 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Caritas relates the 'true', yet largely undocumented story of Christine Carpenter, a 14th-century anchoress who moves towards insanity as her desire for a divine revelation continues to be unfulfilled after a period of three years locked in her cell. Although physically isolated, she is aware of the worldly life and love that she has abandoned. The very essence of the drama is the dogmatic refusal of her Bishop to release her from her vows. Set against the backcloth of the Peasants' Uprising (1381), the libretto/play juxtaposes sacred and secular worlds, the relative power and servitude of rulers and serfs, and the terrifying ordeal of Christine who is caught between the inflexibility of the established church and her personal religious expectations. Such a narrative was to offer rich opportunities for musical characterization and evocation of the historical context of the action, as well as substantial challenges in pacing and integrating the sequence of dramatic 'snap-shots' that culminate in a scene of total despair. The colourful juxtaposition of secular life and that of a recluse in Act One culminates in a Second Act finale of immense dramatic power in which Saxton's vocal and instrumental writing reaches new heights - a landmark both in his output and in late 20th century opera. Caritas - first performed in 1991 - occupies an important position in Robert Saxton's output and, as Thomas argues, in British opera during the closing decades of the 20th century. Thomas provides a detailed contextual setting in which to evaluate Caritas, as well as presenting an analytical commentary on the structure, musical language, instrumentation, staging and production of the opera. Thomas concludes with a reflection on the reception of Caritas as well as looking forward to Saxton's later and future works. A downloadable resource of the first performance is included.

Felice Giardini and Professional Music Culture in Mid-Eighteenth-Century London (Hardcover): Cheryll Duncan Felice Giardini and Professional Music Culture in Mid-Eighteenth-Century London (Hardcover)
Cheryll Duncan; Series edited by Keefe Simon
R1,653 Discovery Miles 16 530 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

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.

Opera Indigene: Re/presenting First Nations and Indigenous Cultures (Hardcover, New Ed): Pamela Karantonis, Dylan Robinson Opera Indigene: Re/presenting First Nations and Indigenous Cultures (Hardcover, New Ed)
Pamela Karantonis, Dylan Robinson
R4,661 Discovery Miles 46 610 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

The representation of non-Western cultures in opera has long been a focus of critical inquiry. Within this field, the diverse relationships between opera and First Nations and Indigenous cultures, however, have received far less attention. Opera Indigene takes this subject as its focus, addressing the changing historical depictions of Indigenous cultures in opera and the more contemporary practices of Indigenous and First Nations artists. The use of 're/presenting' in the title signals an important distinction between how representations of Indigenous identity have been constructed in operatic history and how Indigenous artists have more recently utilized opera as an interface to present and develop their cultural practices. This volume explores how operas on Indigenous subjects reflect the evolving relationships between Indigenous peoples, the colonizing forces of imperial power, and forms of internal colonization in developing nation-states. Drawing upon postcolonial theory, ethnomusicology, cultural geography and critical discourses on nationalism and multiculturalism, the collection brings together experts on opera and music in Canada, the Americas and Australia in a stimulating comparative study of operatic re/presentation.

Opera after 1900 (Hardcover, New Ed): Margaret Notley Opera after 1900 (Hardcover, New Ed)
Margaret Notley
R5,818 Discovery Miles 58 180 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

The articles reprinted in this volume treat operas as opera and from some sort of critical angle; none of the articles uses methodology appropriate for another kind of musical work. Additional criteria used in selecting the articles were that they should not have been reprinted widely before and that taken together they should cover an extended array of significant operas and critical questions about them. Trends in Anglophone scholarship on post-1900 opera then determined the structure of the volume. The anthologized articles are organized according to the place of origin of the opera discussed in each of them; the introduction, however, follows a thematic approach. Themes considered in the introduction include questions of genre and reception; perspectives on librettos and librettists; words, lyricism, and roles of the orchestra; and modernism and other political contexts.

Studies in Seventeenth-Century Opera (Hardcover, New Ed): Beth L Glixon Studies in Seventeenth-Century Opera (Hardcover, New Ed)
Beth L Glixon
R8,769 Discovery Miles 87 690 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

The past four decades have seen an explosion in research regarding seventeenth-century opera. In addition to investigations of extant scores and librettos, scholars have dealt with the associated areas of dance and scenery, as well as newer disciplines such as studies of patronage, gender, and semiotics. While most of the essays in the volume pertain to Italian opera, others concern opera production in France, England, Spain and the Germanic countries.

National Traditions in Nineteenth-Century Opera, Volume I - Italy, France, England and the Americas (Hardcover, New Ed): Steven... National Traditions in Nineteenth-Century Opera, Volume I - Italy, France, England and the Americas (Hardcover, New Ed)
Steven Huebner
R5,822 Discovery Miles 58 220 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

This volume covers opera in Italy, France, England, and the Americas during the long nineteenth century (1789-1914). The book is divided into four sections that are thematically, rather than geographically, conceived: places - essays centering on contexts for operatic culture; genres and styles - studies dealing with the question of how operas in this period were put together; critical studies of individual works, exemplifying particular critical trends; and, performance.

National Traditions in Nineteenth-Century Opera, Volume II - Central and Eastern Europe (Hardcover, New Ed): Michael C. Tusa National Traditions in Nineteenth-Century Opera, Volume II - Central and Eastern Europe (Hardcover, New Ed)
Michael C. Tusa
R6,570 R5,808 Discovery Miles 58 080 Save R762 (12%) Ships in 10 - 15 working days

This volume offers a cross-section of English-language scholarship on German and Slavonic operatic repertories of the 'long nineteenth century', giving particular emphasis to four areas: German opera in the first half of the nineteenth century; the works of Richard Wagner after 1848; Russian opera between Glinka and Rimsky-Korsakov; and, the operas of Richard Strauss and Janacek. The essays reflect diverse methods, ranging from stylistic, philological, and historical approaches to those rooted in hermeneutics, critical theory, and post-modernist inquiry.

Opera Remade, 1700-1750 (Hardcover, New Ed): Charles Dill Opera Remade, 1700-1750 (Hardcover, New Ed)
Charles Dill
R5,816 Discovery Miles 58 160 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Opera in the first half of the eighteenth century saw the rise of the memorable composer and the memorable work. Recent research on this period has been especially fruitful, showing renewed interest in how opera operated within its local cultures, what audience members felt was at stake in opera performances, who the people - composers and performers - were who made opera possible. The essays for this volume capture the principal themes of current research: the 'idea' of opera, opera criticism, the people of opera, and the emerging technologies of opera.

Harrison Birtwistle: The Mask of Orpheus - The Mask of Orpheus (Hardcover, New Ed): Jonathan Cross Harrison Birtwistle: The Mask of Orpheus - The Mask of Orpheus (Hardcover, New Ed)
Jonathan Cross
R4,772 Discovery Miles 47 720 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Hailed at its premiere at the London Coliseum in 1986 as the most important musical and theatrical event of the decade, The Mask of Orpheus is undoubtedly a key work in Harrison Birtwistle's output. His subsequent stage and concert pieces demand to be evaluated in its light. Increasingly, it is also viewed as a key work in the development of opera since the Second World War, a work that pushed at the boundaries of what was possible in lyrical theatre. In its imaginative fusion of music, song, drama, myth, mime and electronics, it has become a beacon for many younger composers, and the object of wide critical attention. Jonathan Cross begins his detailed study of this 'lyric tragedy' by placing it in the wider context of the reception of the Orpheus myth. In particular, the significance of Orpheus for the twentieth century is discussed, and this provides the backdrop for an examination of Birtwistle's preoccupation with the story in a variety of works across his creative life. The sources and genesis of The Mask of Orpheus are explored. This is followed by a close reading of the work's three acts, analysing their structure and meaning, investigating the relationship between music, text and drama, drawing on Zinovieff's textual drafts and Birtwistle's compositional sketches. The book concludes by suggesting a range of contexts within which The Mask of Orpheus might be understood. Its central themes of time, memory and identity, loss, mourning and melancholy, touch a deep sensibility in late-modern society and culture. Interviews with the librettist and composer round off this important study.

The Moderate Soprano (Paperback, Main): David Hare The Moderate Soprano (Paperback, Main)
David Hare
R308 R278 Discovery Miles 2 780 Save R30 (10%) Ships in 9 - 17 working days

I want to give my country a model of perfection. My country needs cheering up. I'm the man to do it. A man of great passions, John Christie wooed his opera singer wife with a determination befitting a man who won the Military Cross at the Battle of Loos. Now, in 1934, this Etonian science teacher's admiration for the works of Wagner has led him to embark on the construction of an opera house on his Sussex estate. Then, by chance, he hears word of a group of refugees from Nazi Germany who may perhaps deliver his vision of the sublime - assuming they're willing to cast his wife in the lead. David Hare's The Moderate Soprano tells the story of how Glyndebourne, this most English of institutions, derives its character firstly from a woman and secondly from an Austrian and two Germans. The play premiered at Hampstead Theatre in 2015, and opened at the Duke of York's Theatre, London, in April 2018. 'In the grand tradition of Bulgakov's Black Snow, a penetrating way of investigating the politics of life in general through the troubled internal politics of a particular theatrical institution. Fervently recommended.' Independent 'A loving portrayal of the mix of vision, stubbornness, grit, love and luck that can produce great art.' Financial Times

Opera in the Jazz Age - Cultural Politics in 1920s Britain (Hardcover): Alexandra Wilson Opera in the Jazz Age - Cultural Politics in 1920s Britain (Hardcover)
Alexandra Wilson
R938 Discovery Miles 9 380 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Jazz, the Charleston, nightclubs, cocktails, cinema, and musical theatre: 1920s British nightlife was vibrant and exhilarating. But where did opera fit into this fashionable new entertainment world? Opera in the Jazz Age: Cultural Politics in 1920s Britain explores the interaction between opera and popular culture at a key historical moment when there was a growing imperative to categorize art forms as "highbrow," "middlebrow," or "lowbrow." Literary studies of the so-called "battle of the brows" have been numerous, but this is the first book to consider the place of opera in interwar debates about high and low culture. This study by Alexandra Wilson argues that opera was extremely difficult to pigeonhole: although some contemporary commentators believed it to be too highbrow, others thought it not highbrow enough. Opera in the Jazz Age paints a lively and engaging picture of 1920s operatic culture, and introduces a charismatic cast of early twentieth-century critics, conductors, and celebrity singers. Opera was performed during this period to socially mixed audiences in a variety of spaces beyond the conventional opera house: music halls, cinemas, cafes and schools. Performance and production standards were not always high - often quite the reverse - but opera-going was evidently great fun. Office boys whistled operatic tunes they had heard on the gramophone and there was a genuine sense that opera was for everyone. In this provocative and timely study, Wilson considers how the opera debate of the 1920s continues to shape the ways in which we discuss the art form, and draws connections between the battle of the brows and present-day discussions about elitism. The book makes a major contribution to our understanding of the cultural politics of twentieth-century Britain and is essential reading for anybody interested in the history of opera, the battle of the brows, or simply the perennially fascinating decade that was the 1920s.

The Opera Singer's Acting Toolkit - An Essential Guide to Creating A Role (Hardcover): Martin Constantine The Opera Singer's Acting Toolkit - An Essential Guide to Creating A Role (Hardcover)
Martin Constantine
R4,656 Discovery Miles 46 560 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

The complete dramatic toolbox for the opera singer - a step-by-step guide detailing how to create character, from auditions through to rehearsal and performance and formulate a successful career. Drawing upon the innovative approach to the training of young opera singers developed by Martin Constantine, Co-Director of ENO Opera Works, The Opera Singer's Acting Toolkit leads the singer through the process of bringing the libretto and score to life in order to create character. It draws on the work of practitioners such as Stanislavski, Lecoq, Laban and Cicely Berry to introduce the singer to the tools needed to create an interior and physical life for character. The book draws on operatic repertoire from Handel through Mozart to Britten to present practical techniques and exercises to help the singer develop their own individual dramatic toolbox. The Opera Singer's Acting Toolkit features interviews with leading conductors, directors, singers and casting agents to offer invaluable insights into the professional operatic world, and advice on how to remain focused on the importance of the work itself.

The Singing Turk - Ottoman Power and Operatic Emotions on the European Stage from the Siege of Vienna to the Age of Napoleon... The Singing Turk - Ottoman Power and Operatic Emotions on the European Stage from the Siege of Vienna to the Age of Napoleon (Paperback)
Larry Wolff
R836 Discovery Miles 8 360 Ships in 18 - 22 working days

While European powers were at war with the Ottoman Empire for much of the eighteenth century, European opera houses were staging operas featuring singing sultans and pashas surrounded by their musical courts and harems. Mozart wrote The Abduction from the Seraglio. Rossini created a series of works, including The Italian Girl in Algiers. And these are only the best known of a vast repertory. This book explores how these representations of the Muslim Ottoman Empire, the great nemesis of Christian Europe, became so popular in the opera house and what they illustrate about European-Ottoman international relations. After Christian armies defeated the Ottomans at Vienna in 1683, the Turks no longer seemed as threatening. Europeans increasingly understood that Turkish issues were also European issues, and the political absolutism of the sultan in Istanbul was relevant for thinking about politics in Europe, from the reign of Louis XIV to the age of Napoleon. While Christian European composers and publics recognized that Muslim Turks were, to some degree, different from themselves, this difference was sometimes seen as a matter of exotic costume and setting. The singing Turks of the stage expressed strong political perspectives and human emotions that European audiences could recognize as their own.

Twentieth-Century British Authors and the Rise of Opera in Britain (Hardcover, New Ed): Irene Morra Twentieth-Century British Authors and the Rise of Opera in Britain (Hardcover, New Ed)
Irene Morra
R4,628 Discovery Miles 46 280 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

This book is the first to examine in depth the contributions of major British authors such as W. H. Auden and E. M. Forster, as critics and librettists, to the rise of British opera in the twentieth century. The perceived literary values of British authors, as much as the musical innovations of British composers, informed the aesthetic development of British opera. Indeed, British opera emerged as a simultaneously literary and musical project. Too often, operatic adaptations are compared superficially to their original sources. This is a particular problem for British opera, which has become increasingly defined artistically by the literary sophistication of its narrative sources. The resulting collaborations between literary figures and composers have crucial implications for the development of both opera and literature. Twentieth-Century British Authors and the Rise of Opera in Britain reveals the importance of this literary involvement in operatic adaptation to literature and literary studies, to music and musicology, and to cultural and theoretical studies.

The Operas of Benjamin Britten - Expression and Evasion (Paperback, New Ed): Claire Seymour The Operas of Benjamin Britten - Expression and Evasion (Paperback, New Ed)
Claire Seymour
R888 Discovery Miles 8 880 Ships in 18 - 22 working days

This controversial analysis of Britten's operatic works demonstrates how he used music to explore his most private concerns. Claire Seymour examines ways in which Britten's operas explored and articulated the inherent ambiguity and latent sexuality of music, particularly song, and suggests that they may illustrate his search for a public "voice" which would embody, communicate, and perhaps resolve his private beliefs and anxieties. She demonstrates how the delicate balance between private and public communication, and the tension between art as self-expression and art as moral resolution were key concerns in Britten's music. Analyses of Britten's operas from Paul Bunyan to Death in Venice, the three Church Parables, and several of the "children's operas" offer evidence that, for Britten, opera was the natural medium through which to explore, express and, paradoxically, repress his private concerns.

Cabals and Satires - Mozart's Comic Operas in Vienna (Hardcover): Ian Woodfield Cabals and Satires - Mozart's Comic Operas in Vienna (Hardcover)
Ian Woodfield
R1,643 Discovery Miles 16 430 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

When Joseph II placed his opera buffa troupe in competition with the re-formed Singspiel, he provoked an intense struggle between supporters of the rival national genres, who organized claques to cheer or hiss at performances, and encouraged press correspondents to write slanted notices. It was in this fraught atmosphere that Mozart collaborated with librettist Lorenzo da Ponte on his three mature Italian comedies-Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Cosi fan tutte. In Cabals and Satires: Mozart's Comic Operas in Vienna, Ian Woodfield brings the fascinating dynamics of this inter-troupe contest into focus. He reveals how Mozart, while not immune from the infighting, was able to weather satirical attacks, successfully negotiate the unpredictable twists and turns of theatre politics during the lean years of the Austro-Turkish War, and seal his reputation with a revival of Figaro in 1789 as a Habsburg festive work. Mozart's deft navigation of the turbulent political waters of this period left him well placed to benefit from the revival of the commercial stage in Vienna-the most enduring musical consequence of the war years.

Operatic Migrations - Transforming Works and Crossing Boundaries (Hardcover, New Ed): Downing A. Thomas Operatic Migrations - Transforming Works and Crossing Boundaries (Hardcover, New Ed)
Downing A. Thomas
R4,648 Discovery Miles 46 480 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

This volume takes an interdisciplinary approach to studying a wide range of subjects associated with the creation, performance and reception of 'opera' in varying social and historical contexts from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. Each essay addresses migrations between genres, cultures, literary and musical works, modes of expression, media of presentation and aesthetics. Although the directions the contributions take are diverse, they converge in significant ways, particularly with the rebuttal of the notion of the singular nature of the operatic work. The volume strongly asserts that works are meaningfully transformed by the manifold circumstances of their creation and reception, and that these circumstances have an impact on the life of those works in their many transformations and on a given audience's experience of them. Topics covered include transformations of literary sources and their migration into the operatic genre; works that move across geographical and social boundaries into different cultural contexts; movements between media and/or genre as well as alterations through interpretation and performance of the composer's creation; the translation of spoken theatre to lyric theatre; the theoretical issues contingent on the rendering of 'speech' into 'song'; and the transforming effects of aesthetic considerations as they bear on opera. Crossing over disciplinary boundaries between music, literary studies, history, cultural studies and art history, the volume enriches our knowledge and understanding of the operatic experience and the works. The book will therefore appeal to those working in the field of music, literary and cultural studies, and to those with a particular interest in opera and musical theatre.

The Vienna Don Giovanni (Hardcover): Ian Woodfield The Vienna Don Giovanni (Hardcover)
Ian Woodfield
R3,046 Discovery Miles 30 460 Ships in 18 - 22 working days

In the year following its 1787 Prague premiere, Don Giovanni was performed in Vienna. Everyone, according to the well-known account by Da Ponte, thought something was wrong with it. In response, Mozart made changes, producing a Vienna 'version' of the opera, cutting two of the original arias but inserting three newly-composed pieces. The dilemma faced by musicians and scholars ever since has been whether to preserve the opera in these two 'authentic' forms, or whether to fashion a hybrid text incorporating the best of both. This study presents new evidence about the Vienna form of the opera, based on the examination of late eighteenth-century manuscript copies. The Prague Conservatory score is identified as the primary exemplar for the Viennese dissemination of Don Giovanni, which is shown to incorporate two quite distinct versions, represented by the performing materials in Vienna (O.A.361) and the early Lausch commercial copy in Florence. To account for this phenomenon, seen also in early sources of the Prague Don Giovanni and Cosi fan tutte, a general theory of transmission for the Mozart Da Ponte operas is proposed, which clarifies the relationship between the fluid text produced by re-creation (performing) and the static text generated by replication (copying). Aspects of the compositional history of Don Giovanni are uncovered. Evidence to suggest that Mozart first considered an order in which Donna Elvira's scena precedes the comic duet 'Per queste tue manine' is assessed. The essential truth of Da Ponte's account - that the revision of the opera in Vienna was an interactive process, involving the views of performers, the reactions of audiences and the composer's responses - seems to be fully borne out. The final part of the study investigates the late eighteenth-century transmission of Don Giovanni. The idea that hybrid versions gained currency only in the nineteenth century or in the lighter Singspiel tradition is challenged. IAN WOODFIELD is Professor and Director of Research at the School of Music and Sonic Arts, Queen's University Belfast.

Madama Butterfly/Madamu Batafurai - Transpositions of a 'Japanese Tragedy' (Hardcover): Arthur Groos Madama Butterfly/Madamu Batafurai - Transpositions of a 'Japanese Tragedy' (Hardcover)
Arthur Groos
R2,952 R2,491 Discovery Miles 24 910 Save R461 (16%) Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Puccini's famous but controversial Madama Butterfly reflects a practice of 'temporary marriage' between Western men and Japanese women in nineteenth-century treaty ports. Groos' book identifies the plot's origin in an eye-witness account and traces its transmission via John Luther Long's short story and David Belasco's play. Archival sources, many unpublished, reveal how Puccini and his librettists imbued the opera with differing constructions of the action and its heroine. Groos's analysis suggests how they constructed a 'contemporary' music-drama with multiple possibilities for interpreting the misalliance between a callous American naval officer and an impoverished fifteen-year-old geisha, providing a more complex understanding of the heroine's presumed 'marriage'. As an orientalizing tragedy with a racially inflected representation of Cio-Cio-San, the opera became a lightning rod for identity politics in Japan, while also stimulating decolonizing transpositions into indigenous theatre traditions such as Bunraku puppet theatre and Takarazuka musicals.

Free Delivery
Pinterest Twitter Facebook Google+
You may like...
Rossini - His Life and Works
Richard Osborne Hardcover R1,634 Discovery Miles 16 340
The Story of Bayreuth as Told in the…
Richard Wagner Paperback R571 Discovery Miles 5 710
Khovanchtchina - (The Khovanskys) a…
Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky Paperback R335 Discovery Miles 3 350
Tin Pan Opera - Operatic Novelty Songs…
Larry Hamberlin Hardcover R1,247 Discovery Miles 12 470
Whose Spain? - Negotiating Spanish Music…
Samuel Llano Hardcover R1,701 Discovery Miles 17 010
Staging the French Revolution - Cultural…
Mark Darlow Hardcover R2,601 Discovery Miles 26 010
Musical Symbolism in the Operas of…
Elliot Antokoletz Hardcover R4,121 Discovery Miles 41 210
Bewitching Russian Opera - The Tsarina…
Inna Naroditskaya Hardcover R2,889 Discovery Miles 28 890
Changing the Score - Arias, Prima…
Hilary Poriss Hardcover R1,803 Discovery Miles 18 030
Berg's Wozzeck
Patricia Hall Hardcover R3,269 Discovery Miles 32 690

 

Partners