While no one would dispute Wagner's ranking among the most significant composers in the history of Western music, his works have been more fiercely attacked than those of any other composer. Alleged to be an unscrupulous womanizer and megalomaniac, undeniably a racist, Wagner's personal qualities and attitudes have often provoked, and continue to provoke, intense hostility that has translated into a mistrust and abhorrence of his music.

In this emphatic, lucid book, Michael Tanner discusses why people feel so passionately about Wagner, for or against, in a way that they do not about other artists who had personal traits no less lamentable than those he is thought to have possessed. Tanner lays out the various arguments made by Wagner's detractors and admirers, and challenges most of them. The author's fascination for the relationships among music, text, and plot generates an illuminating discussion of the operas, in which he persuades us to see many of Wagner's best-known works anew--"The Ring Cycle, Tristan und Isolde, Parsifal." He refrains from lengthy and detailed musical examination, giving instead passionate and unconventional analyses that are accessible to all lovers of music, be they listeners or performers.

In this fiery reassessment of one of the greatest composers in the history of opera, Tanner presents one of the most intelligent and controversial portraits of Wagner to emerge for many years.

From the fall of 1947 through the summer of 1951 composer Igor Stravinsky and poet W. H. Auden collaborated on the opera The Rake's Progress. At the time, their self-consciously conventional work seemed to appeal only to conservative audiences. Few perceived that Stravinsky and Auden were confronting the central crisis of the Modern age, for their story of a hapless eighteenth-century Everyman dramatizes the very limits of human will, a theme Auden insists underlies all opera. In The Last Opera, Chandler Carter weaves together three interlocking stories. The central and most detailed story explores the libretto and music of The Rake's Progress. The second positions the opera as a focal point in Stravinsky's artistic journey and those who helped him realize it-his librettists, Auden and Chester Kallman; his protege Robert Craft; and his compatriot, fellow composer, and close friend Nicolas Nabokov. By exploring the ominous cultural landscape in which these fascinating individuals lived and worked, the book captures a pivotal twenty-five-year span (from approximately 1945 to 1970) during which modernists like Stravinsky and Auden confronted a tectonic disruption to their artistic worldview. Ultimately, Carter reveals how these stories fit into a larger third narrative, the 400-year history of opera. This richly and lovingly contextualized study of The Rake's Progress sheds new light on why, despite the hundreds of musical dramas and theater pieces that have been written since its premier in 1951, this work is still considered the "the last opera."

This illustrated study is a resource for opera scholars, opera workers and opera lovers. It explores the field of opera studies in three ways: Through history: Opera North is presented through a historical lens within the UK operatic landscape. The chapter amalgamates extensive archival resources and interview material, including many illustrations from its 35 year history. Through ethnography: the day-to-day workplace behaviour of an opera company is explored in its rehearsal and performance spaces, and the production cycle from first music rehearsal to first night is traced through detailed observation and photographic records. Through production analysis: selected productions of recent years are given a dramaturgical focus, with aspects of conceptual, textual and visual analysis. Opera North was founded as English National Opera North in 1978. It became independent from English National Opera in 1981 and holds a reputation for fostering artistic talent, for adventurous programming choices and for high production values. This study explores universal issues relating to the production of opera, based on the very specific example of our National Opera Company in the North.

In a lively exploration of Jacques Offenbach's final masterpiece, Heather Hadlock shows how "Les Contes d'Hoffmann" summed up not only the composer's career but also a century of Romantic culture. A strange fusion of irony and profundity, frivolity and nightmare, the opera unfolds as a series of dreamlike episodes, peopled by such archetypes as the Poet, the Beautiful Dying Girl, the Automaton, the Courtesan, and the Mesmerist. Hadlock shows how these episodes comprise a collective unconscious. Her analyses touch on topics ranging from the self-reflexive style of the protagonist and the music, to parallels between nineteenth-century discourses of theater and medical science, to fascination with the hysterical female subject.

"Les Contes d'Hoffmann" is also examined as both a continuation and a retraction of tendencies in Offenbach's earlier operettas and "opera-comiques." Hadlock investigates the political climate of the 1870s that influenced the composer's vision and the reception of his last work. Drawing upon insights from feminist, literary, and cultural theory, she considers how the opera's music and libretto took shape within a complex literary and theatrical tradition. Finally, Hadlock ponders the enigmas posed by the score of this unfinished opera, which has been completed many times and by many different hands since its composer's death shortly before the premiere in 1881. In this book, the "mad loves" that drive "Les Contes d'Hoffmann"--a poet's love, a daughter's love, erotic love, and fatal attraction to music--become figures for the fascination exercised by opera itself."

No musical partnership has enjoyed greater success during its time span, or bequeathed a more powerful and enduring legacy, than that of Gilbert and Sullivan in the later nineteenth century. Even before their first successful collaboration in 1875, both William Schwenk Gilbert (1836-1911) and Arthur Seymour Sullivan (1842-1900) had already forged considerable reputations for themselves. Thereafter, between 1877 and 1896, Gilbert wrote the librettos, and Sullivan the music, for no fewer than a dozen Savoy operas, among them the still regularly performed 'H.M.S. Pinafore' (1878), 'The Pirates of Penzance' (1879), 'Iolanthe' (1882), 'The Mikado' (1885), 'The Yeomen of the Guard' (1888) and 'The Gondoliers' (1889). Not only are the plots ingenious, the lyrics witty and the music compelling, the operas also present modern audiences with splendidly rich and satirical evocations of Victorian England and its society: the prime subject matter of this book!

The "Golden Age" of opera-going in Russia, from the 1840s through the 1880s, coincided with the flourishing of Russian prose realism. During this period, opera and literature exerted a reciprocal influence on one another, each adopting and providing a new context for the other's artistic conventions. Opera permeated the culture of the drawing room so often depicted in literature, and literature simultaneously discovered the opera theater. The relationship between these two artistic genres inspired the use of performative models and conventions in Russian literary art, and led to the interpolation of specific operatic subtexts into literature and life.
To many, these genres were antithetical, since opera historically aimed for the high stylistic register, and prose fiction experimented with the low. But the author shows that the attempt to translate opera into prosaic contemporary lives was characteristic of nineteenth-century Russia, since literature provided an alternative cultural theater in Russia to which the opera theater was analogous and parallel. As contested and self-regarding social space, the opera theater offered its visitors a rare public forum. The reception of opera as an art form in Russia resembles the impact of the early cinema on Russian audiences in the early twentieth century, since opera and film both brought about an aesthetic reconfiguring of social space.
This book treats opera-going in imperial Russia from multiple perspectives, and discusses such canonical works as Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina" and Goncharov's "Oblomov, " major operatic works including Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin" and Verdi's "La Traviata, " the impact of Western opera in Russia and the Russian-style prima donna. The book engages with poems, sketches, feuilletons, stories, and rarely-discussed Russian novels, as well as non-fictional reminiscences, reviews, and visual images. Throughout, the book is enriched with examples and anecdotes about performers, spectators, and critics, and reception histories of specific operatic works.

The Story of Opera explores the centuries-old tradition in which the emotional power of music is linked to the human issues that can be enacted as stories. The first part, "Going to the Opera," introduces newcomers to every element of the operatic experience-venues, seating arrangements, dress and costumes, stage effects, orchestra, singers, and dancers-describing how each began and changed over the years, and how they have all combined to enthrall audiences for four centuries. The remaining parts explore operatic repertory from the 17th century to the present, providing insightful readings of plots, particular scenes, staging, and music.

A group of resourceful kids start "solution-seekers.com," a website where "cybervisitors" can get answers to questions that trouble them. But when one questioner asks the true meaning of Christmas, the kids seek to unravel the mystery by journeying back through the prophecies of the Old Testament. What they find is a series of "S" words that reveal a "spectacular story " With creative characters, humorous dialogue and great music, The "S" Files is a children's Christmas musical your kids will love performing.

A biography of composer Jacques Offenbach that is also a social and cultural history of Second Empire Paris. Siegfried Kracauer's biography of the composer Jacques Offenbach is a remarkable work of social and cultural history. First published in German in 1937 and in English translation in 1938, the book uses the life and work of Offenbach as a focal point for a broad and penetrating portrayal of Second Empire Paris. Offenbach's immensely popular operettas have long been seen as part of the larger historical amnesia and escapism that pervaded Paris in the aftermath of 1848. But Kracauer insists that Offenbach's productions must be understood as more than glittering distractions. The fantasy realms of such operettas as La Belle Helene were as one with the unreality of Napoleon III's imperial masquerade, but they also made a mockery of the pomp and pretense surrounding the apparatuses of power. At the same time, Offenbach's dreamworlds were embedded with a layer of utopian content that can be seen as an indictment of the fraudulence and corruption of the times. This edition includes Kracauer's preface to the original German edition as well as a critical foreword by Gertrud Koch.

This is the fullest catalogue in any language of the works of the great Czech composer Leos Janacek. The entry for each work includes detailed information on date of composition, source of texts, performing forces, duration, manuscript locations, publication, performances and production, dedication, and literature. The catalogue also includes a complete annotated edition of the composer's writings.

Bel canto singing was a historical phenomenon which embraced the Italian opera of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This is a translation of Rudolfo Celletti's `Storia del Belcanto', which offers a fascinating history of bel canto singing and the voice in operatic literature.

'..the news that Baritone Richard Suart has produced an account of Ko-Ko's Little Lists will be music to your ears. Beginning with a brief history of The Mikado, this hearty collaboration focuses on the way contemporary politics and society are freshly lampooned in each season's book' - Sunday Telegraph Richard Suart, heir to the great Gilbert and Sullivan singers of the past, has made the role of KoKo, Lord High Executioner, his own. Over the last 20 years his topical version of the Little List song has become a focus of audience expectation and hilarity. In this book, he looks back over the Lists that have raised such laughter at the Coliseum and at the history of this immensely malleable song, taking in previous performers such as George Grossmith, Martyn Green, Groucho Marx, Frankie Howerd and Eric Idle -not to mention poets as varied as John Hollander and Tim Rice. Illustrated with 56 colour and 45 b/w illustrations, many never previously reproduced, this is a delightful biography of one of the most entertaining songs in the English language.

Elektra was the fourth of fifteen operas by Strauss and opened his successful partnership with the librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It is one of the most important operas of the early twentieth century and it solidified Strauss's status as the leading German opera-composer of his day. Bryan Gilliam's study of this major work examines its musical-historical context and also provides a detailed analysis of some of its musical features. He establishes a chronology of the evolution of the opera and places it in the larger framework of German opera of the time. His detailed examination of the sketch-books enables him to offer fresh insight into Strauss's use of motifs and overall tonal structure. In so doing he shows how the work's arresting dissonance and chromaticism has hidden its similarities to his later, seemingly more tonally conservative opera, Der Rosenkavalier - not only does Strauss in both operas exploit a variety of musical styles to express irony, parody, and other emotions, but both are in fact thoroughly tonal.

In this book, Warren Darcy traces the compositional genesis of Richard Wagner's opera Das Rheingold, the first opera of his great operatic tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen. He also attempts a comprehensive formal and tonal analysis of the piece. Basing his work upon Wagner's textual and musical manuscripts, he employs the most up-to-date analytical techniques.

The Verdi-Boito Correspondence presents 301 letters between Giuseppe Verdi and his last, most gifted librettist, Arrigo Boito. Documenting an extraordinary chapter in musical history, this definitive English edition of the landmark Carteggio Verdi/Boito features an introduction by Marcello Conati, improvements and updatings to the original edition, an appendix of undated correspondence, and a short closing sketch of Boito's life after the death of his beloved maestro. With a fascinating glimpse of the daily life of European art and artists during the fertile last decades of the nineteenth century, this book is a valuable resource for anyone passionate about opera.

Opera Coaching: Professional Techniques for the Repetiteur, Second Edition, is an update to the first practical guide for opera coaches when working with opera singers to help them meet the physical and vocal demands of a score in order to shape a performance. Opera coaching remains a mystery to many musicians. While an opera coach (or repetiteur) is principally tasked with ensuring singers sing the right notes and words, the coach's purview extends well beyond pitches and pronunciation. The opera coach must have a full understanding of human physiognomy and the human voice, as well as a knowledge of the many languages used in Western vocal music and over four centuries of opera repertoire - all to recognize what must happen for success when a singer steps on stage. NEW to this second edition: New and updated chapters throughout, featuring new discussions on large ensembles, twenty-first-century demands, and more. Deeper investigation of the styles of and problems posed by particular operas. Revised chapter structure that allows for an expanded and progressive emphasis on technical work. Modern singers have bemoaned the scarcity of good vocal coaches and conductors - those who understand voices and repertoire alike. Opera Coaching: Professional Techniques for the Repetiteur, Second Edition, demystifies the role of the opera coach, outlining the obstacles facing both the opera singer and the coach who seeks to realize the performer's full potential.

Sir William Schwenk Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan created fourteen comic operas - witty satires set to sparkling music - that instantly won a large and enthusiastic audience and remain immensely popular today. Their talents brought the two men together and their temperaments finally drove them apart. Here, in forty interviews and recollections, is a record of what was said about them during and shortly after their lifetimes by friends, musicians, theatrical managers, singers, actors, and actresses, journalists and authors. For Gilbert and Sullivan devotees everywhere, this entertaining collection will provide fresh insights into the careers and collaborative achievements of one of the most successful - and enduring - enterprises of Victorian theatre.

The Operatic Archive: American Opera as History extends the growing interdisciplinary conversation in opera studies by drawing on new research in performance studies and the philosophy of history. Moving beyond traditional aesthetic conceptions of opera, this book argues for opera's powerful potential for historical impact and engagement in late twentieth- and twenty-first-century works by American composers. Considering opera's ability to serve as a vehicle for memory, historical experience, affect, presence, and the historical sublime, this volume demonstrates how opera's ability to represent and evoke historical events and historical experience differs fundamentally from the representations and recreations of other modes (specifically, literary and dramatic representations). Building on the work of performance scholars such as Joseph Roach, Rebecca Schneider, and Diana Taylor, and in consultation with recent debates in the philosophy of history, the book will be of interest to a wide range of scholars and researchers, particularly those working in the areas of opera studies and performance studies.

This investigation offers new perspectives on Giuseppe Verdi's attitudes to women and the functions which they fulfilled for him. The book explores Verdi's professional and personal relationship with women who were exceptional within the traditional socio-sexual structure of patria potesta, in the context of women's changing status in nineteenth-century Italian society. It focusses on two women; the singers Giuseppina Strepponi, who supported and enhanced Verdi's creativity at the beginning of his professional life and Teresa Stolz, who sustained his sense of self-worth at its end. Each was an essential emotional benefactor without whom Verdi's career would not have been the same. The subject of the Strepponi-Verdi marriage and the impact of Strepponi's past deserve further detailed and nuanced discussion. This book demonstrates Verdi's shifting power-balance with Strepponi as she sought to retain intellectual self-respect while his success and control increased. The negative stereotypes concerning operatic 'divas' do not withstand scrutiny when applied either to Strepponi or to Stolz. This book presents a revisionist appraisal of Stolz through close examination of her letters. Revealing Stolz's value to Verdi, they also provide contemporary operatic criticism and behind-the-scenes comment, some excerpts of which are published here in English for the first time.

Opera Coaching: Professional Techniques for the Repetiteur, Second Edition, is an update to the first practical guide for opera coaches when working with opera singers to help them meet the physical and vocal demands of a score in order to shape a performance. Opera coaching remains a mystery to many musicians. While an opera coach (or repetiteur) is principally tasked with ensuring singers sing the right notes and words, the coach's purview extends well beyond pitches and pronunciation. The opera coach must have a full understanding of human physiognomy and the human voice, as well as a knowledge of the many languages used in Western vocal music and over four centuries of opera repertoire - all to recognize what must happen for success when a singer steps on stage. NEW to this second edition: New and updated chapters throughout, featuring new discussions on large ensembles, twenty-first-century demands, and more. Deeper investigation of the styles of and problems posed by particular operas. Revised chapter structure that allows for an expanded and progressive emphasis on technical work. Modern singers have bemoaned the scarcity of good vocal coaches and conductors - those who understand voices and repertoire alike. Opera Coaching: Professional Techniques for the Repetiteur, Second Edition, demystifies the role of the opera coach, outlining the obstacles facing both the opera singer and the coach who seeks to realize the performer's full potential.

This is a revised and updated edition of Julian Budden's monumental survey of the operas of Giuseppe Verdi. Hailed on publication for its extraordinary comprehensibility, it examines each of the operas in detail, giving a full account of its dramatic and historical origins and a critical evaluation. The text is supported by a wealth of musical illustrations.

Volume 2 covers those works written during the decadence of the post-Rossini period. During this time, Verdi, having exhausted the vein of simple lyricism to be found in Il Trovatore and La Traviata, achieved self-renewal in direct confrontation with the masters of the Paris Opera with his Les Vêpres Siciliennes. A new scale and variety of musical thought can be sensed in the Italian operas that follow, culminating in La Forza del Destino.

This is the third volume of Julian Budden's monumental three-volume survey of the operas of Verdi. Hailed on publication for its extraordinary comprehensibility, the set has become the classic reference work on its subject. For this new edition the author has made a host of corrections throughout, and updated the text in the light of recent scholarship. Volume 3 covers roughly a quarter of a century, a period which saw grand opera on the Parisian model established throughout Italy, the reform of the Conservatories, and the spread of cosmopolitan influences to an extent that convinced many that Italian music was losing its identity. Verdi produced his four last and greatest operas - Don Carlos, Aida, Otello, and Falstaff - in this period, which ended with the advent of `verisimo', in which a new, recognizably Italian idiom was inaugurated. This volume also includes a new and substantial bibliography by Roger Parker.