|
Showing 1 - 2 of
2 matches in All Departments
Essays highlight the interplay between opera, art and ideology
across three centuries. Three broad themes are opened up from a
variety of approaches: nationalism, cosmopolitanism and national
opera; opera, class and the politics of enlightenment; and opera
and otherness. Opera, that most extravagant of the performing arts,
is infused with the contexts of power-brokering and cultural
display in which it was conceived and experienced. For individual
operas such contexts have shifted over time and new meanings
emerged, often quite remote from those intended by the original
collaborators; but tracing this ideological dimension in a work's
creation and reception enables us to understand its cultural and
political role more clearly - sometimes conflicting with its status
as art and sometimes enhancing it. This collection is a Festschrift
in honour of Julian Rushton, one of the most distinguished opera
scholars of his generation and highly regarded for his innovative
studies of Gluck, Mozart and Berlioz, among many others.
Colleagues, associates and former students pay tribute to his work
with essays highlighting the interplay between opera, art and
ideology across three centuries. Three broad themes are opened up
from a variety of approaches: nationalism, cosmopolitanism and
national opera; opera, class and the politics of enlightenment; and
opera and otherness. British opera is represented bystudies of
Grabu, Purcell, Dibdin, Holst, Stanford and Britten, but the
collection sustains a truly European perspective rounded out with
essays on French opera funding, Bizet, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Verdi,
Puccini, Janacek, Nielsen, Rimsky-Korsakov and Schreker. Several
works receive some of their first extended discussion in English.
RACHEL COWGILL is Professor of Musicology at Liverpool Hope
University. DAVID COOPER is Professor of Music and Technology at
the University of Leeds. CLIVE BROWN is Professor of Applied
Musicology at the University of Leeds. Contributors: MARY K.
HUNTER, CLIVE BROWN, PETER FRANKLIN, RALPH LOCKE, DOMINGOS DE
MASCARENHAS,DAVID CHARLTON, KATHARINE ELLIS, BRYAN WHITE, PETER
HOLMAN, RACHEL COWGILL, ROBERTA MONTEMORRA MARVIN, DAVID COOPER,
RICHARD GREENE, J.P.E. HARPER-SCOTT, DANIEL GRIMLEY, STEPHEN MUIR,
JOHN TYRRELL.
Female characters assumed increasing prominence in the narratives
of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century opera. And for
contemporary audiences, many of these characters - and the
celebrated women who played them - still define opera at its finest
and most searingly affective, even if storylines leave them
swooning and faded by the end of the drama. The presence and
representation of women in opera has been addressed in a range of
recent studies that offer valuable insights into the operatic stage
as cultural space, focusing a critical lens at the text and the
position and signification of female characters. Moving that lens
onto the historical, The Arts of the Prima Donna in the Long
Nineteenth Century sheds light on the singers who created and
inhabited these roles, the flesh-and-blood women who embodied these
fabled "doomed women" onstage before an audience. Editors Rachel
Cowgill and Hilary Poriss lead a cast of renowned contributors in
an impressive display of current approaches to the lives, careers,
and performances of female opera singers. Essential theoretical
perspectives reflect several broad themes woven through the
volume-cultures of celebrity surrounding the female singer; the
emergence of the quasi-mythical figure of the diva; explorations of
the intricate and sundry arts associated with the prima donna, and
with her representation in other media; and the diversity and
complexity of contemporary responses to her. The prima donna
influenced compositional practices, determined musical and dramatic
interpretation, and affected management decisions about the running
of the opera house, content of the season, and employment of other
artists - a clear demonstration that her position as "first woman"
extended well beyond the boards of the operatic stage itself. The
Arts of the Prima Donna in the Long Nineteenth Century is an
important addition to the collections of students and researchers
in opera studies, nineteenth-century music, performance and
gender/sexuality studies, and cultural studies, as well as to the
shelves of opera singers and enthusiasts.
|
|