This book is the first study of the development of German opera in northern Germany from the first comic operas of Johann Adam Hiller at Leipzig in 1766 to the end of the century. Intellectually and historically, the period witnessed the flowering of the German stage and German letters. German opera was an inseparable part of the new aspirations of the German stage during the Enlightenment. Thomas Bauman stresses the vital role of the mixed repertories of German companies in effecting changes in the genre. North German opera began as a basically literary genre. It then changed dramatically in response to two major trends: first, the contact with the serious elements and styles of tragedy and secondly, the triumph on German stages of Italian, French, and Viennese comic operas. The book is generously illustrated with music examples. There is also a complete catalogue of texts of North German opera: those composed for performance and unset published librettos both cross-indexed under the librettists' names.

The first comprehensive study of Verdi's perennially popular opera Il trovatore, written by one of the world's great Verdi authorities. No full-length study has ever been written on Il trovatore, in his day Verdi's most successful stage work. This book by one of the world's great Verdi authorities fills that gap, providing a comprehensive look at the opera,from its genesis and structure to its early performance history and critical reception. Starting with the background of the opera, the volume traces the origins of the original play by Antonio Garcia Gutierrez, El trovador, and offers a new, more credible source for the drama. In addition, it examines the evolution of the libretto, the music, and the arrangement of the narrative, revealing innovative musical and dramatic features not seenby other critics. The book also includes a discussion of contemporary reviews and a section on some of the important performers in the twentieth century (for example, Toscanini and Caruso), as well as a consideration of several ofthe more unusual stagings of the work mounted during the final decades of the century. With these and other explorations, Martin Chusid offers a thorough survey of Verdi's Il trovatore and in the process deepens and enhances our encounter with one of the mainstays of the operatic reparatory. Martin Chusid is Professor Emeritus of Music, New York University, and founding director of the American Institute for Verdi Studies.

A detailed investigation of the reception and cultural contexts of Puccini's music, this book offers a fresh view of this historically important but frequently overlooked composer. Wilson's study explores the ways in which Puccini's music and persona were held up as both the antidote to and the embodiment of the decadence widely felt to be afflicting late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Italy, a nation which although politically unified remained culturally divided. The book focuses upon two central, related questions that were debated throughout Puccini's career: his status as a national or international composer, and his status as a traditionalist or modernist. In addition, Wilson examines how Puccini's operas became caught up in a wide range of extra-musical controversies concerning such issues as gender and class. This book makes a major contribution to our understanding of both the history of opera and of the wider artistic and intellectual life of turn-of-the-century Italy.

This study recognizes the broad impact of opera in early-modern French culture. Downing A. Thomas considers the use of operatic spectacle and music by Louis XIV as a vehicle for absolutism; the resistance of music to the aesthetic and political agendas of the time; and the long-term development of opera in eighteenth-century humanist culture. He argues that French opera moved away from the politics of the absolute monarchy in which it originated to address Enlightenment concerns with sensibility and feeling. The book combines close readings of significant seventeenth-century and eighteenth-century operatic works, circumstantial writings and theoretical works on theatre and opera, together with a measure of reception history. Thomas examines key works by Lully, Rameau and Charpentier, among others, and extends his reach from the late seventeenth century to the end of the eighteenth.

In Robert Ward's The Crucible: Creating an American Musical Nationalism, Robert Paul Kolt explores the life of the American composer Robert Ward through an examination of his most popular and enduring work, The Crucible. Focusing on the musical-linguistic relationships within the opera, Kolt demonstrates Ward's unique synthesis of text and music, one that lends itself to the perception of American musical nationalism. This book contains the most thorough and in-depth biography of Ward yet in print. Based on interviews with the composer, Kolt presents new information about Ward's life and career, focusing on his opera and examining the formation and construction of The Crucible's libretto and score, in turn offering new insights into the process of composing an opera. Kolt observes how the libretto's linguistic aspects helped Ward formulate the opera's melodic and rhythmic musical material. A detailed and unique analysis of the opera, particularly the musical and linguistic techniques Ward employed, demonstrates how these techniques lend themselves to the opera's reception as a work of American musical nationalism. The book also provides yet unpublished information on Arthur Miller's play, examining how it came to be written and soon after became the basis for Ward's work. Several appendixes provide a fuller picture, including a deleted scene from Miller's play and Ward's version of the scene, a chronological overview of the Salem Witchcraft Trials, and illustrations and photo reproductions from Ward's manuscript.

This 2004 book is a full-length, scholarly study of what is widely regarded as Mozart's most enigmatic opera and Lorenzo Da Ponte's most erudite text. Against the long-standing judgement that the opera uses a misguided confidence in reason to traduce feeling, Goehring's study shows how Cosi affirms comedy's regenerative powers and its capacity to grant access to modes of sympathy and understanding that are otherwise inaccessible. In making this argument, the book surveys a rich literary, operatic and intellectual territory. It offers fresh perspective on the relationships between text and tone in the opera, on the tension between comedy and philosophy and its representation in stage works and on the pastoral mode which the opera uses in subtle ways. Throughout, Goehring's argument is sustained by close readings of primary sources, many of them little known, and is richly illustrated with musical examples.

In this valuable collection of essays, published to coincide with the tercentenary of Handel's birth, Reinhard Strohm examines the relationship between Handel's great operas and the earlier European Baroque tradition, focusing on the Italian school, to which they are so crucially indebted. Handel's immediate heritage included the figures of Scarlatti, Gasparini and Vivaldi; this book establishes that context, concentrating on contemporary operatic practice, and proceeds to analyse three of Handel's best-known works. It shows how they elaborate and develop the style and method of the Italian operatic theatre, embracing previous traditions and synthesizing them with a new and exciting accentuation.

Sarah Caldwell: The First Woman of Opera is the first biography of this significant musician, conductor, and director and documents Ms. Caldwell's genius as an indomitable force for opera in America. Caldwell mounted many U.S. premieres and brought rare editions of standard works to her audiences. At the height of her career, she raised her baton over four of the top five orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and conducted orchestras in such cities as Pittsburgh, St. Louis, San Antonio, Atlanta, Mexico City, and Puerto Rico. She conducted ensembles in Canada, Sweden, South Africa, and Russia; was a musical director for Wolf Trap; and was the first woman to conduct at the Metropolitan Opera. She founded the renowned Opera Company of Boston, as well as the outreach effort Opera New England and a nation-wide touring enterprise, the American National Opera Company. Caldwell's undeniable zeal was evident in whatever she undertook, and her accomplishments invite reflection, showing what an opera company could and should be in America. Daniel Kessler presents Ms. Caldwell's life in flashbacks and explores her 1978 landmark production of Gaetano Donizetti's Don Pasquale, which serves as a prime example of how she engaged with her creative Muse. He describes her personal and professional life, including her experience with the impresario Boris Goldovsky, her ability to create her own brand of "stage wizardry," and her moments of overreaching and hubris, such as her unorthodox fundraising methods and her experience with Imelda Marcos. Complete with several illustrations, a bibliography, an index, and the comprehensive annals of her three opera companies, Sarah Caldwell demonstrates what one person of genius, imagination, and passion can accomplish single-handedly.

Focusing on Verdi's French operas, Giger shows how the composer acquired an ever better understanding of the various approaches to French versification while gradually bringing his works in line with French melodic aesthetic. In his first French opera, Jerusalem, Verdi treated the text in an overly cautious manner, trying to avoid prosodic mistakes; in Les Vepres siciliennes he began to apply more freedom, scanning the verses against some prosodic accents to convey the lightheartedness of a melody; and in Don Carlos he finally drew on the entire palette of prosodic interpretations. Most of Verdi's melodic accomplishments in the French operas carried over into the subsequent Italian ones, setting the stage for what later would be called operatic verismo. Drawing attention to the significance of the libretto for the development of nineteenth-century French and Italian opera, this text illustrates Verdi's gradual mastery of the challenges he faced, and their historical significance.

Starting in the late 18th century a development is observable in which a new theatrical aesthetic of dramatic speech exploiting the musical potential of the voice went hand in hand with an abundance of melo-dramatic forms. Cutting across the boundaries of genre and the customary distinction between spoken art and music, theoreticians and practitioners explored the declamatory use of speech as a musical phenomenon in its own right. The present interdisciplinary study examines the development of this historical combination of the speaking voice and the musical arts, concentrating in particular on the profusion of different forms of 'Melodram' in the period in question.

In this third edition of the classic Verdi, renowned authority Julian Budden offers a comprehensive overview of Verdi the man and the artist, tracing his ascent from humble beginnings to the status of a cultural patriarch of the new Italy, whose cause he had done much to promote, and demonstrating the gradual enlargement over the years of his artistic vision. This concise study is an accessible, insightful, and engaging summation of Verdi scholarship, acquainting the non-specialist with the personal details Verdi's life, with the operatic world in which he worked, and with his political ideas, his intellectual vision, and his powerful means of communicating them through his music. In his survey of the music itself, Budden emphasizes the unique character of each work as well as the developing sophistication of Verdi's style. He covers all of the operas, the late religious works, the songs, and the string quartet. A glossary explains even the most obscure operatic terms current in Verdi's time.

A characteristic feature of Wagnerian and post-Wagnerian opera is the tendency to link scenes with numerous and often surprisingly lengthy orchestral interludes, frequently performed with the curtain closed. Often taken for granted or treated as a filler by audiences and critics, these interludes can take on very prominent roles, representing dream sequences, journeys and sexual encounters, and in some cases becoming a highlight of the opera. Christopher Morris investigates the implications of these important but strangely overlooked passages. Combining close readings of individual musical texts with an investigation of the critical discourse surrounding the operas, Morris shows how the interludes shed light not only on the representational and narrative capacities of the orchestra, but also on the supposed 'absolute' realm of instrumental music, a concept to which many critics appealed when they associated the interludes with 'purely musical' and 'symphonic' qualities.

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 comprehensive critical study of the nineteenth-century French grand opera La Juive (Paris Opera, 1835) is a powerful and successful work by the leading dramatist and librettist Eugene Scribe, and Conservatoire-trained composer, Fromental Halevy. Hallman explores the politically charged messages of the opera within the context of French social and cultural history. The book addresses the opera's portrayal of religious intolerance and Jewish-Christian conflict in subject, setting and characterization, viewing the anticlerical thrust of its critique as a reminder of the historical abuses of an autocratic Church and State and as reflection of the era's liberal ideology. It also considers the portrayal of the central Jewish characters in light of literary stereotypes and contradictory, antisemitic attitudes toward Jews in French society.

Wagner is often held to have exerted a greater impact on modern culture than any other artist, yet the history of the reception of his works in Russia has until now remained largely unexplored. This book, which draws extensively on unpublished archival materials and other contemporary sources, aims to show that in certain important respects, Wagner's music and ideas found more fertile ground in Russia than anywhere else in Europe. Beginning with the first mention of Wagner's name in the Russian press in 1841, and ending almost 150 years later when the composer was finally rehabilitated during the years of glasnost, this study provides the first detailed account of Wagner's visit to Russia in 1863, and a history of the productions of his works in Russia both before and after the Revolution (including radical stagings by Meyerhold and Eisenstein). The book pays special attention to Wagner's important influence on the Russian Modernist movement, focusing particularly on his impact on the leading Symbolist writers, Vyacheslav Ivanov, Andrey Bely and Aleksandr Blok.

Conducting Opera discusses operas in the standard repertory from the perspective of a conductor with a lifetime of experience performing them. It focuses on Joseph Rescigno's approach to preparing and performing these masterworks in order to realize what opera can uniquely achieve: a fusion of music and drama resulting in a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.Opening with a chapter discussing his performance philosophy, Rescigno then covers Mozart's most-performed operas, standards of the bel canto school including Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia, five of Verdi's works including La traviata, a selection of Wagner's compositions followed by French Romantic operas such as Bizet's Carmen, Puccini's major works, and finally four operas by Richard Strauss. A useful appendix contains a convenient guide to the scores available online. Conducting Opera includes practical advice about propelling a story forward and bringing out the drama that the music is meant to supply, as well as how to support singers in their most difficult moments. Rescigno identifies particularly problematic passages and supplies suggestions about how to navigate them. In addition, he provides advice on staying true to the several styles under discussion.

Each entry in this New Grove series of composers and their operas is based on articles in The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, that feature information on the lives of individual composers, their works, their librettists and interpreters, and the places where they performed. These unique books compile the meticulously researched articles into organized narratives, designed to make finding information as easy as possible without sacrificing readability. Each volume is completely up-to-date, and includes a suggested listening guide and an eight-page glossy insert containing relevant illustrations. Each volume is a must-own for lovers of opera and classical music.
One of the best known and most admired figures in European music was Wolfgang Amade Mozart. His short but colorful life is of enduring interest, and his works remain central to the repertories of classical music. This book gives a concise and scholarly account of Mozart's activities as a composer of operas. It includes a concise biography, orientated towards the operas; an essay on Mozart's operatic contribution and style, and the antecedents to his operas; a separate synopsis and historical account of each opera; and three essays which bind into narrative form the dictionary entries on librettists, interpreters, and venues. There is a new introduction, a glossary of relevant terms, a list of operatic roles, and a guide to listening.

The transformation of Vienna and the Habsburg Empire at the end of the nineteenth century was accompanied by the development of a new musical genre, Viennese operetta, and no composer was better suited than Johann Strauss to express his native city's pride and anxiety during this period. Camille Crittenden provides an overview of Viennese operetta, then takes Strauss's works as a series of case studies in the interaction between stage works and audience. The book also examines Strauss's role as national icon during his lifetime and throughout the twentieth century.

German opera from its primitive origins up to Wagner is the subject of this wide-ranging history. It traces the growth of the humble Singspiel into a vehicle for the genius of Mozart and Beethoven, together with the persistent attempts at German Grand Opera. Seventeenth-century Hamburg opera, the role of the travelling companies and Viennese Singspiel are all explored. Discussions that from early days absorbed Germans concerned for the development of a national art are followed, together with the influence of new critical thought at the start of the nineteenth century. The many operas studied are placed in their historical, social and theatrical context, and attention is paid to the literary, artistic and philosophical ideas that made them part of the country's intellectual history. Warrack assesses the contributions of Schubert, Mendelssohn and Schumann, as well as Weber and Hoffmann, among others.

Leoncavallo: Life and Works is the first fully documented biography of the beloved and popular composer Ruggiero Leoncavallo (1857-1919), whose credits include Pagliacci and the operatic works Chatterton, Der Roland von Berlin, Zaza, Maia, Zingari, La boheme, and the incomplete trilogy Crepusculum. Author Konrad Dryden has amassed material from hundreds of unpublished letters and photographs, creating the most complete portrait of the composer to date. This book examines various facets of Leoncavallo's history: from his youth as the son of the Naples' judge who presided over the murder trial on which Pagliacci was based to his studies with the poet Giosue Carducci, and from his sojourn in France as a cafe-chantant pianist to his appointment in Egypt as music instructor to the Khedive. Careful documentation and plot synopses of Leoncavallo's numerous works are provided and his two U.S. tours are discussed. The biography also sheds new light on Leoncavallo's colleagues and contemporaries, including composers Mahler, Massenet, Puccini, Verdi, and Mascagni; singers Caruso, Ruffo, Tetrazzini, and Sanderson; and historical personalities like Toscanini, Hugo, Carducci, Wilhelm II, and Queen Victoria. A foreword by Placido Domingo, a photo spread featuring more than 25 photos, and an appendix offering the complete list of the composer's opus add to the bibliography and index, making this the ultimate reference on this important figure in music and opera history.

'One of the most sought-after tenors with the stamina and heft for Wagner and the ardent warmth for Italian opera' New York Times Jonas Kaufmann is a phenomenon. With his musicality, his vocal technique and his expressive powers - to say nothing of his matinee-idol good looks - he is widely regarded as the greatest tenor of today. Thomas Voigt's intimate biography, written in collaboration with Kaufmann, reflects on the singer's artistic development in recent years; his work in the recording studio; his relationship to Verdi and Wagner; the sacrifices of success; and much more. It gives unparalleled insight into the world of one of the most captivating opera singers of the international stage. WITH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM PLACIDO DOMINGO, ANJA HARTEROS, ANTONIO PAPPANO AND MANY MORE 'Mr Voigt's journalistic credentials are impeccable ... Mr Kaufmann goes into detail on the physical demands of his art; he speaks eloquently on the fear to which all singers are prone' The Economist

Each entry in this New Grove series of composers and their operas is based on articles in The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, that feature information on the lives of individual composers, their works, their librettists and interpreters, and the places where they performed. These unique books compile the meticulously researched articles into organized narratives, designed to make finding information as easy as possible without sacrificing readability. Each volume is completely up-to-date, and includes a suggested listening guide and an eight-page glossy insert containing relevant illustrations. Each volume is a must-own for lovers of opera and classical music.
Giuseppe Verdi is the most famous Italian composer of opera. While he was sometimes criticized for writing music considered too "simple," his works have endured, and are still performed throughout the world today. This concise volume is a handy guide to the Verdi's life and operas, revising the original New Grove articles and adding a new introduction, a new section on modern Verdi productions, and an updated bibliography.

First published in 1996 to great critical and popular acclaim, the Grove Book of Operas, is a collection of synopses and descriptions of over 250 operas. Each succinct yet insightful entry is written by a leading authority on the opera and includes a full synopsis of the plot, a cast list, a note on the singers in the original production, and information on the origins of the work and its literary and social background. Contributions conclude with a brief comment on the particular work's place in operatic history. A glossary offers brief and accessible definitions of terms that may be unfamiliar to the reader. And indices of role names and of arias and ensembles allow the reader to find operas containing their favorite aria or a well-known character. The second edition brings the book up to date with several recently composed operas and a fascinating introductory essay by David Levin on opera performance in the 21st century. Recent additions to the operatic repertory included for the first time in this edition include Nicholas Maw, Sophie's Choice; Poul Ruders, A Handmaid's Tale; John Adams, Death of Klinghoffer; and Mark Adamo, Little Women. Covering all operas in the current repertory along with some less-well-known early and very modern ones, this is an ideal volume for the general opera lover.

This is a collection of essays to explore the wide dimensions and influence of eighteenth-century opera. In a series of articles by leading scholars in the field, a range of perspectives are offered on the important figures of the day, including Handel, Vivaldi, Gluck, Rameau and Mozart, and on the fundamental problems of creation, revision, borrowing, influence and intertextuality. Other essays reinterpret librettos of serious opera in the French and Italian theatre during the later eighteenth century. Sister arts, notably painting, the novel, ballet and the spoken stage, are also examined in their relationship to the development of opera. Bracketing the collection are studies of the early pastoral opera and of Prokofiev, which expand our historical view of operatic life during the Age of Reason. The book contains numerous rare illustrations, and will be of interest to scholars and students of opera and theatre history.

One of the most controversial figures in the history of ideas as well as music, Richard Wagner continues to stimulate debate whenever his works are performed. Drawing upon the scholarship of The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, the most comprehensive dictionary of opera in the world, Barry Millington offers a concise, portable survey and guide, which will make a welcome addition to the shelf of anyone who loves opera.
Millington has completely updated the original pieces and contributed four new chapters on Wagner, including a summary of Wagner productions from 1876 to the present day, a suggested listening and viewing gyide, complete chronology of Wagner's operas, and a glossary of terms that will delight any opera-goer. In addition, there are detailed entries on each of Wagner's operas, a main biographical section, and a group of separate articles on such topics as Leitmotif and Gesamtkunstwerk, as well as a newly revised updated article on Bayreuth.
Complete with a new preface, updated bibliography, glossary, and discography--including first release dates of each recording--The New Grove Guide to Wagner and his Operas furnishes both seasoned Wagner-lovers and neophytes with all they require for an in-depth appreciation of this unique historical figure.