Alban Berg's Wozzeck is one of the most significant operas of the twentieth century. Douglas Jarman's study provides a clear and accessible introduction to this work, placing it in the context of the radical developments in musical language during the early decades of the century and of the development of Berg's own musical style. The book covers all aspects of the work. Early chapters are devoted to the history and discovery of the Buchner play Woyzeck on which Berg based the libretto and to the background and composition of the opera. A detailed synopsis takes the reader through the events on stage in relation to the structured musical effects. Particular attention is given in the subsequent chapter to the unique dramatic and musical design of the opera. In offering a possible interpretation of the work Douglas Jarman considers this closely organized structure in relation to the expressionistic language of the music. A final chapter charts the performances of the opera, in particular early productions, which are illustrated with many hitherto unpublished photographs from Berg's own lifetime. An important feature of the book is the inclusion of many important and otherwise unobtainable contemporary documents concerned with the play and the opera, includine Karl Emil Franzos's description of the reconstruction of the fragmented Buchner play and three commentaries by Berg himself on the opera. This comprehensive guide will be invaluable to the student and opera-goer wishing to unravel the musical and dramatic complecities of this important work.

The first comprehensive guide to Pelleas et Melisande, Debussy's only completed opera, this book is written by three of the leading authorities on French music of the period. As a background to the opera Richard Langham Smith discusses the play, by the Belgian dramatist Maeterlinck, and considers its literary roots. David Grayson then traces the genesis and composition of the opera, examining also the sketches and rejected versions in order to illuminate Debussy's compositional strategies. A detailed synopsis by Roger Nichols, which considers carefully Debussy's musical response to the text, forms a central chapter. The book then moves on to consider more detailed aspects of the style and language of the opera. The relationship between symbols and musical motives forms the basis of a chapter by Richard Langham Smith, and a subsequent chapter by him considers the themes of darkness and light and the key-schemes used to portray them. Two chapters by Roger Nichols on the various performances since 1902 and on the ideas of interpreters and commentators complete the text. The book concludes with a detailed bibliography and a discography.

A detailed documentary history of opera in Portugal from the beginning of the eighteenth century to the inauguration of the still existing Teatro de S. Carlos in 1793. This 1989 study shows how the introduction of opera into the country at the beginning of the century was connected with the recruitment of Italian singers and players during the reign of Joao V, even though the court's interest in opera was small and the activity of public opera houses was hampered by the church and the King himself. This study is valuable not only as a much-needed authoritative and thorough history of the Portuguese musical theatre in the eighteenth century, paralleling existing studies for all other major European operatic centres of the time, but also for the significant contribution it makes to the study of Italian opera with which it interconnects, and of musical theatre in general.

This is a series of studies of individual operas written for the opera-goer or record-collector as well as the student or scholar. Each volume has three main concerns: historical, analytical and interpretative. There is a detailed description of the genesis of each work, the collaboration between librettist and composer, and the first performance and subsequent stage history. A full synopsis considers the opera as a structure of musical and dramatic effects, and there is also a musical analysis of a section of the score. The analysis, like the history, shades naturally into interpretation: by a careful combination of new essays and excerpts from classic statements the editors of the handbooks show how critical writing about the opera, like the production and performance, can direct or distort appreciation of its structural elements. A final section of documents gives a select bibliography, a discography, and guides to other sources. Each book is published in both hard covers and as a paperback.

This analysis of the opera, as well as its social, cultural and musical context, progresses to an exploration of the comic possibilities of the classical style and opera buffa in the 1770s and 1780s.

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.

This addition to the Cambridge Opera Handbooks series is also the first full-length study of Mozart's Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail. It aims to familiarize the reader with all aspect of the work: Mozart's writing of the opera and its literary antecedents, its plot, its musical structure, its reception and performance history. The reader will find much that is new in Thomas Bauman's study. He discusses the opera in relation to other Oriental operas, in the light of eighteenth-centruy apprehensions of the East, and as an attempt to reconcile the conventions of German opera in the early 1780s with Viennese taste and Mozart's own maturing operatic aesthetic. The text is well illustrated with pictures and music examples and a full discography lists the available recordings of the opera. This will be essential reading for all who have an interest in Mozart's operas, whether as student, scholar or opera-lover.

James Hepokoski provides a reliable summary of what is currently known about Otello, along with an interpretation of the significance of the work within Verdi's career. The book begins with a detailed synopsis which interweaves some of the specific stage action from the 1887 Milanese premiere. There follows a close consideration of how the opera was actually written: Arrigo Boito's derivation of the libretto from Shakespeare and the subsequent textual revisions; Verdi's composition of the opera from 1884 to 1887 and an overview of the revisions of the opera for Venice in 1887 and Paris in 1894. A further chapter outlines Verdi's own ideas for the performance of Otello and this is followed by William Ashbrook's summary of the opera's stage history up to the present. Professor Hepokoski continues by suggesting a new model for understanding the musical structure of Otello. The book concludes with a study of the opera as a work of Shakespearean adaptation.

Essays on the genesis of the opera, the structure of the libretto and aspects of the work's reception are featured along with a brief study of Puccini's working methods as seen through the autograph score. A full synopsis and discography are included.

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.

This detailed study of the earliest opera to have gained a foothold in the modern repertoire has three main sections, with contributions from experts on various aspects of the opera's history and performance.

The book begins with a historical section, in which all the known evidence about the creation and early performances of "Orfeo" is drawn together and evaluated. The first chapter recounts the story of the early Mantuan performances, with the aid of hitherto unpublished contemporary correspondence (the texts of the letters are given, in Italian and English, in an appendix). The sources of the libretto are studied in this section, and the text of the original ending of the opera is given together with an English translation. This section ends with a detailed analytical synopsis of the opera, which considers (among other points) the reasons for believing that the opera was originally staged without breaks between the acts, and the implications of this for performers and critics today.

The second section of the book includes a detailed history of the rediscovery of the opera; an influential essay on the opera by Joseph Kerman is reprinted here, together with a review by Romain Rolland of the first modern performance of "Orfeo." The final section includes essays by a conductor and a producer who have staged notable performances of the opera in recent years. They explain their approaches to the work, and offer solutions to some of the problems that it poses in performance.

This book--essential reading for all students of Monteverdi and of the early history of opera--will also enhance the enjoyment of opera-goers and record-collectors alike.

This book is intended primarily as a guide for the opera goer. It includes a synopsis of the plot, with indications of the themes and motifs used in it, and discusses the style of the opera, Tosca being a typical example of Italian naturalism in operas, verismo. It compares Puccini's libretto with Sardou's play La Tosca, analyses the close-knit structure of the work and examines salient points in the music. It also describes the genesis of the work (quoting wherever appropriate, Puccini's own remarks about it), its first production and early reception. A subsidiary aim of the book is to present the opinions, positive and negative, that have been expressed by various critics about the opera since its first production in 1900. There are contributions from the celebrated singer and producer of Tosca Tito Gobbi, and two other musicologists, Roger Parker and William Ashbrook. Malcolm Walker has provided a discography.

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.

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.

This book is a compact, up-to-date guide to the history and construction of Verdi's last - and possibly greatest - opera. Incorporating the findings of the most recent research, it provides performers, opera enthusiasts, students and scholars alike with a reliable summary of what is currently known about the work. The book gives a full synopsis of the plot and a detailed account both of Verdi's aims in composing the opera and of how he actually composed it: which portions were difficult for him, which he considered crucial, which were afterthoughts, etc. Special attention is given to separating the three versions of Falstaff that Verdi approved - versions that are still confused in almost all performances today. Professor Hepokoski also supplies extensive discussions of Boito's derivation of the plot and text from Shakespeare (and others); of the musical technique and structure of Falstaff; and of Verdi's own guidelines for interpretation, staging and singing. A guide to critical assessments of the opera illustrates the widely differing receptions the opera has had in the twentieth century, and a concluding essay by Graham Bradshaw discusses Shakespearean aspects of both Otello and Falstaff. The book contains a bibliography, a discography (by Malcolm Walker), illustrations of the original stage designs and costumes, and extensive musical examples.

In 1847 Wagner read the Oresteian trilogy, the finest surviving work by Aeschylus. The impact on him of Aeschylus' work, at this crucial time in his development, changed Wagner's entire vision of his own role as an artist. As he wrote in his autobiography: 'I could actually see the Oresteia with my mind's eye, as though it were actually being performed and its effect on me was indescribable. ... My ideas about the significance of drama and of the theatre were, without a doubt, moulded by these impressions ...' Wagner and Aeschylus examines the role that the Oresteia played in the shaping of the Ring, showing how Aeschylus' masterpiece influenced Wagner's at many levels, from the basic idea of using mythical material for a cycle of 'stage festival dramas' right through to profound aspects of subject matter and form and Wagner's conception of the role of music in opera. Two introductory chapters look at the overall relationship between Wagner and Aeschylus; there follows an analysis of the four dramas of the Ring: the points of affinity and the differences, between Wagner's cycle and Aeschylus' are discussed in detail, an approach which throws fresh light on the form and meaning of the Ring.

Includes explanatory essays on the opera by Gabriel Josipovici and Paul Griffiths, a detailed synopsis, an outline of the work's performance history, and a discussion of its genesis as well as a discography and bibliography.

Kat'a Kabanova is both the first Janacek opera to have been performed in Britain and the one which has received the most productions in Britain and the USA. In this book John Tyrrell brings together letters, early reviews and other documents (most of them translated from Czech for the first time) on the opera's composition and its early performances. A group of key interpretations of the opera ranges from one by the opera's German translator and Janacek's first biographer Max Brod to specially commissioned essays by Wilfrid Mellers and by David Pountney, producer of the highly successful Welsh National Opera/Scottish Opera Janacek cycle.

This collection of 8 essays introduces literary and cultural theorists into the domain of operatic textual analysis, long the exclusive preserve of musicologists. The contributors include some of the most distinguished critics of the past 30 years, most of them writing about opera for the first time.

This collection of 8 essays introduces literary and cultural theorists into the domain of operatic textual analysis, long the exclusive preserve of musicologists. The contributors include some of the most distinguished critics of the past 30 years, most of them writing about opera for the first time.

This book is a study of Mozart's Don Giovanni, his second opera to a libretto by da Ponte. Although it is one of the handful of best-known and most often performed operas of the last two hundred years, Don Giovanni is seldom given in an authentic form and arguments persist as to its nature. Julian Rushton takes the view that, notwithstanding the tragic nature of certain scenes, it must be regarded as an opera buffa. He gives a brief summary of its history and life in the theatre, but the chief historical essay (by Edward Forman) concerns the subject-matter before it reached da Ponte. The book includes a very detailed synopsis which forms the basis of an extended commentary on the librettist's handling of a plot constructed of both original and inherited ideas. Bernard Williams contributes an essay on Don Giovanni as an idea in literature and philosophy since Mozart. The book concludes with an extensive bibliography, and a discography of complete recordings compiled by Malcolm Walker.

In this book Lucy Beckett gives a comprehensive account of Wagner's last and strangest opera. The literary sources of this work, its many links with Wagner's life and thought, its libretto, music and stage history, are all thoroughly examined. There is a full commentary, with extensive quotation, on the work's critical history, and finally, a fresh assessment of its place in the Wagner canon and of its unique quality as a music drama that is both modern and Christian. Full references, a bibliography and a discography are provided. A special chapter of musical analysis is contributed by Arnold Whittall.

This book explains how and why Gluck’s historically important and best-loved opera Orfeo came into existence, and shows why it has retained its popularity. The work is placed in its context of Gluck’s ‘reform of opera’, an artistic movement involving actors, dancers, designers, writers and philosophers, as well as musicians and librettists. Patricia Howard and her fellow contributors describe how the opera has been reinterpreted during the two hundred years between its first performance and the present day. Differing twentieth-century views based on practical experience of the work are put forward by the conductors John Eliot Gardiner and Sir Charles Mackerras, the singer Kevin Smith and the English National Opera music consultant Tom Hammond.

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.