We often look to the theater for spectacle and wonder, but in
opera, we find pure enchantment. What is it about the marriage of
music and the stage that fills us with such bewilderment and
passion? How does the sensual space of opera transport us into the
realm of dream?
Jean Starobinski considers the allure of several seducers and
seductresses from nineteenth-century opera-Monteverdi's "Poppea,"
Handel's "Alcina," and Massenet's "Manon," among others-and how
their stories are woven into the fabric of Western culture. A
talented storyteller and renowned critic of literature and music,
Starobinski moves from musical analysis and textual exegesis to an
investigation of the political, social, and aesthetic scene of
Europe at the time. He traces the elements of theater, poetry,
painting, sculpture, dance, and music as they occur in operatic
performance, and shows how opera's use of narrative genres,
especially the fairy tale, in turn influenced many important short
stories, novels, and other works.
Nineteenth-century romantics were drawn to opera because of
their desire to revive a religious vision of the world that the
Enlightenment suppressed. Starobinski revisits the experiences of
Rousseau, Stendhal, Hoffmann, Balzac, and Nietzsche, major writers
who fell for opera's portrayal of "heaven," the loss of one's love,
and the task of the artist, whether composer or performer.
Starobinski's critical breadth and depth, as well as his eclectic
taste and keen observation, echo such great comparative critics as
Erich Auerbach, RenA(c) Wellek, George Steiner, Harold Bloom, and
Angus Fletcher. This spellbinding book will enchant not only fans
of the opera, but also those who wish tounderstand the form's
enduring heritage in Western culture.
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