The past four decades have seen an explosion in research regarding seventeenth-century opera. In addition to investigations of extant scores and librettos, scholars have dealt with the associated areas of dance and scenery, as well as newer disciplines such as studies of patronage, gender, and semiotics. While most of the essays in the volume pertain to Italian opera, others concern opera production in France, England, Spain and the Germanic countries.

New essays by noted authorities on music and related arts in early modern Italy, giving special attention to musical sources, poetry, performance, and visual arts. The rich cultural environment of early modern Italy inspired a vast array of musical innovations: this was the first age of the virtuoso performer, the era that witnessed the beginnings of opera, and a moment that saw the intersection and cross-fertilization of madrigals and songs of all sorts. Word, Image, and Song: Essays on Early Modern Italy presents a broad range of approaches to the study of music and related arts in that era. Topics include musical source studies, issues of performance, poetry and linguistics, influences on music from the classical tradition, and the interconnectedness of music and visual art. Their points of departure include well-known musical workssuch as Monteverdi's madrigals, librettos of seventeenth-century operas, the poetry of Giambattista Marino, and the paintings of Titian and his contemporaries. Contributors: Jennifer Williams Brown, Mauro Calcagno, Alan Curtis, Suzanne G. Cusick, Ruth I. DeFord, Dinko Fabris, Beth L. Glixon, Jonathan E. Glixon, Barbara Russano Hanning, Wendy Heller, Robert R. Holzer, Deborah Howard, Giuseppe Mazzotta, Margaret Murata, David Rosand, Susan ParkerShimp, Gary Tomlinson, Alvaro Torrente, Andrew H. Weaver. Rebecca Cypess is Assistant Professor of Music at the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. Beth L. Glixon is Instructor in Musicology at the University of Kentucky School of Music. Nathan Link is NEH Associate Professor of Music at Centre College.

Applies the notion of musical "voice" to diverse repertoires, ranging from the operas and cantatas of Handel to the autograph albums of nineteenth-century collector Charlotte de Rothschild. The concept of musical voice has been a subject of controversy in recent decades, as the primacy of the composer's place in the creation of the work has been called into question. The essays in Word, Image, and Song: Essays onMusical Voices take the notion of musical voice as a starting point, and apply it in varying ways to diverse repertoires and music-historical circumstances, ranging from the operas and cantatas of Handel to the autograph albums of nineteenth-century collector Charlotte de Rothschild. Rather than attributing interpretive control to the composer, performer, or audience alone, these essays present a range of interpretive strategies with respect to the various voices that one might hear and understand as emerging from a musical work: the composer's voice, the performer's voice, the patron's voice, the collector's voice, and the social or receptive voice. Contributors: Bathia Churgin, Rebecca Cypess, Roger Freitas, Philip Gossett, Ellen T. Harris, Joseph Kerman, Nathan Link, Daniel R. Melamed, Giovanni Morelli, Kristina Muxfeldt, Ruth Smith, Ruth A. Solie. Rebecca Cypess is Assistant Professor of Music at the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. Beth L. Glixon is instructor in musicology at the University of Kentucky School of Music. Nathan Link is NEH Associate Professor of Music at Centre College.