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First Published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor &
Francis, an informa company.
Christoph Willibald Gluck composed for operas in such a way that served the story and related the poetic quality of music. He possessed a gift for creating unity between the art forms that comprise a ballet or opera. This bibliography and guide ties together the different writings on this artist, providing faster access to the information on his life and work.
This book is designed to introduce the non-specialist music lover
to Britten's opera, The Turn of the Screw. The opening chapters by
Vivien Jones and Patricia Howard deal with the literary source of
the opera Oames's novella), the structure of the libretto, and the
technique by which a short story was transformed into an opera. The
central chapter, on the musical style and structures of the opera,
includes an account of the composition process deduced from early
sketches of the work by John Evans, an analysis of the unique form
of the opera with a more detailed examination of the last scene by
Patricia Howard, and an account of the significance and effect of
the orchestration by Christopher Palmer. Finally, Patricia Howard
traces the stage history of the work, from its initial reception in
Venice in 1954, through some seminal reinterpretations in the 1960s
to its present established position in the repertoire. The book is
generously illustrated and there is also a bibliography and
discography.
This book explains how and why Gluck’s historically important and best-loved opera Orfeo came into existence, and shows why it has retained its popularity. The work is placed in its context of Gluck’s ‘reform of opera’, an artistic movement involving actors, dancers, designers, writers and philosophers, as well as musicians and librettists. Patricia Howard and her fellow contributors describe how the opera has been reinterpreted during the two hundred years between its first performance and the present day. Differing twentieth-century views based on practical experience of the work are put forward by the conductors John Eliot Gardiner and Sir Charles Mackerras, the singer Kevin Smith and the English National Opera music consultant Tom Hammond.
The Modern Castrato: Gaetano Guadagni and the Coming of a New
Operatic Age chronicles the career of the most significant castrato
of the second half of the eighteenth-century. Through a coincidence
of time and place, Gaetano Guadagni was on the forefront of the
heroic opera reform, and many forward-thinking composers of the age
created roles for him. Author Patricia Howard reveals that Guadagni
may have been the only singer of the time fully able to understand
the demands and opportunities of this reform, as well to possess
the intelligence and self-knowledge to realize that it suited his
skills, limitations and temperament perfectly-making him the first
castrato to embrace the concepts of modern singing. The first
full-length biography of this outstanding singer, The Modern
Castrato illuminates the everyday lives of eighteenth-century
singers while spotlighting the historic high points of the century.
Most famous for his creation of the role of Orpheus in Gluck's
Orfeo ed Euridice, his career ranged widely and brought him into
contact with many progressives theorists and composers such as
Traetta, Jommelli, and Bertoni. Howard's focus on the development
of Guadagni's career pauses on essential, related topics along the
way, such as the castrato in society, the eighteenth-century
revolution in acting, and the remarkable evidence for Guadagni's
marionette theater. Howard also assesses Guadagni's surviving
compositions, which give new insight into the quality and character
of his voice as well as his technical and expressive abilities. The
Modern Castrato is an engaging narrative that will prove essential
reading for opera lovers and scholars of eighteenth-century music.
Christoph Willibald Gluck took the most hidebound musical conventions and shook opera free of them. Celebrated today for his historical significance, as the one composer who did most to effect the transition between baroque and classical opera, Gluck in his lifetime was both a controversial figure and a colourful one: the sources portray a man of enormous energy, relish for good food and good company, and passion for his art. This book brings together a variety of eighteenth century sources in an attempt to construct a portrait of Gluck - the eccentric genius with a larger-than-life character. Based primarily on Gluck's vast body of letters to and from his friends and colleagues, the book also includes a wealth of factual documents and informal anecdotes, not easily accessible in the original German, French and Italian , almost none of which has ever been translated.
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