What should we consider when thinking about the relationship between an onstage performance and the story the performance tells? A Poetics of Handel's Operas explores this question by analyzing the narratives of Handel's operas in relation to the rich representational fabric of performance used to convey them. Nathan Link notes that in most storytelling genres, the audience can naturally discern between a story and the way that story is represented: with film, for example, the viewer would recognize that a character hears neither her own voiceover nor the ambient music that accompanies it, whereas in discussions of opera, some audiences may be distracted by the seemingly artificial nature of such conventions as characters singing their dialogue. Link proposes that when engaging with opera, distinguishing between the performance we see and hear on the stage and the story represented offers a meaningful approach to engaging with and interpreting the work. Handel's operas are today the most-performed works in the Baroque opera seria tradition. This genre, with its intricate dramaturgy and esoteric conventions, stands to gain much from an investigation into the relationships between the onstage performance and the story to which that performance directs us. In his analysis, Link offers theoretical studies on opera and narratological theories of literature, drama, and film, providing rich engagement with Handel's work and what it conveys about the relationship between text, story, and performance.

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.