"Libretto-bashing has a distinguished tradition in the blood
sport of opera," writes Arthur Groos in the introduction to this
broad survey of critical approaches to that much-maligned genre. To
examine, and to challenge, the long-standing prejudice against
libretti and the scholarly tradition that has, until recently,
reiterated it, Groos and Roger Parker have commissioned thirteen
stimulating essays by musicologists, literary critics, and
historians. Taken as a whole, the volume demonstrates that libretti
are now very much within the purview of contemporary humanistic
scholarship. Libretti pose questions of intertextuality,
transposition of genre, and reception history. They invite a broad
spectrum of contemporary reading strategies ranging from the
formalistic to the feminist. And as texts for music they raise
issues in the relation between the two mediums and their respective
traditions. Reading Opera will be of value to anyone with a serious
interest in opera and contemporary opera criticism. The essays
cover the period from the early nineteenth to the early twentieth
centuries, with a particular focus on works of the later nineteenth
century. The contributors are Carolyn Abbate, William Ashbrook,
Katherine Bergeron, Caryl Emerson, Nelly Furman, Sander L. Gilman,
Arthur Groos, James A. Hepokoski, Jurgen Maehder, Roger Parker,
Paul Robinson, Christopher Wintle, and Susan Youens.
Originally published in 1988.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand
technology to again make available previously out-of-print books
from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press.
These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these
important books while presenting them in durable paperback
editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly
increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the
thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since
its founding in 1905.
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