Readying Cavalli's Operas for the Stage: Manuscript, Edition, Production

ISBN-13: 9781138270664 / Angielski / Miękka / 2016 / 440 str.

Ellen Rosand

Opis

After more than three centuries of silence, the voice of Francesco Cavalli is being heard loud and clear on the operatic stages of the world. The coincidence of productions at La Scala (Milan) and Covent Garden (London) in the same month (September 2008) of two different operas signals a new stage in the recovery of these extraordinary works, confined until now to special venues committed to 'early music'-opera festivals, conservatory, and university productions. The works of the composer who is credited with having invented the genre of opera as we know it are finally enjoying a renaissance. A new edition of Cavalli's twenty-eight operas is in preparation, and the composer and his works are at the center of a great deal of new scholarship ranging from the study of sources and production issues to the cultural context of opera of this period. In the face of such burgeoning interest, this collection of essays considers the Cavalli revival from various points of view. In particular, it explores the multiple issues involved in the transformation of an operatic manuscript into a performance. Although focused on the works of Cavalli, much of this material can transfer easily to other operatic repertoires. Following an introductory part, reflecting back on four decades of Cavalli performances by some of the conductors responsible for the revival of interest in the composer, the collection is divided into four further parts: The Manuscript Scores, Giasone: Production and Interpretation, Making Librettos, and Cavalli Beyond Venice.

Spis treści

Contents: Preface; Introduction, Ellen Rosand; Part I Historiography of Performances and Editions: Cavalli’s operas: notes from a performing editor, Jane Glover; Editing Cavalli’s operas: fashion or necessity, Álvaro Torrente; After the premiere: the use of alternative sources in revivals of Cavalli’s operas, Dinko Fabris. Part II The Manuscript Scores: Inside Cavalli’s workshop: copies and copyists, Jennifer Williams Brown; Maria Cavalli: in the shadow of Francesco, Christine Jeanneret; Editing the performance score: toward a new understanding of 17^{th-century work concepts, Hendrik Schulze. Part III Giasone, Production and Interpretation: Behind the scenes of Cavalli’s Giasone of 1649, Beth L. Glixon; Spectacle and drama, or, how many sets do we really need to perform 17th-century opera?, Jonathan Glixon; Hysipyle, Medea, and the Ovidian imagination: taming the epic hero on Cavalli’s Giasone, Wendy Heller; Shakespeare and the Golden Fleece, Lawrence Manley. Part IV Making Librettos: Plotting the myth of Giasone, Fausta Antonucci and Lorenzo Bianconi; Cicognini’s Giasone: between music and theater, Anna Tedesco; ‘Ecco reciso alfine il groppo de l’inganno’: Giovanni Faustini’s Euripo from the sources to the plot, Nicola Badolato. Part V Cavalli Beyond Venice: Giasone: a source overview, Thomas Lin and Joseph Salem; Balbi’s Febiarmonici and the first ‘road shows’ of Giasone (1649-1653), Nicola Michelassi; Orione in Milan: a Cavalli premiere, Davide Daolmi; ‘Ercole amante sconosciuto’: reconstructing the revised version of Cavalli’s Parisian opera, Michael Klaper; Ercole amante, the first tragédie en musique?, Barbara Nestola; Select bibliography; Index.}

O autorze

Ellen Rosand, George A. Saden Professor of Music at Yale University, is the author of Opera in Seventeenth-Century Venice: the Creation of a Genre (1991) and Monteverdi’s Last Operas: A Venetian Trilogy (2007). She is the general editor of the new Baerenreiter edition of the operas of Francesco Cavalli, a composer with whom she has been associated since her Ph.D. dissertation days.