Kategoria BISAC: Music >> Genres & Styles - Opera

That Wagner conceived of himself creatively as both man and woman is central to an understanding of his life and art. So argues Jean-Jacques Nattiez in this richly insightful work, where he draws from semiology, music criticism, and psychoanalysis to explore such topics as Wagner's theories of music drama, his anti-Semitism, and his psyche.

Wagner, who wrote the libretti for the operas he composed, maintained that art is the union of the feminine principle, music, and the masculine principle, poetry. In light of this androgynous model, Nattiez reinterprets the Wagnerian canon,...

"Libretto-bashing has a distinguished tradition in the blood sport of opera," writes Arthur Groos in the introduction to this broad survey of critical approaches to that much-maligned genre. To examine, and to challenge, the long-standing prejudice against libretti and the scholarly tradition that has, until recently, reiterated it, Groos and Roger Parker have commissioned thirteen stimulating essays by musicologists, literary critics, and historians. Taken as a whole, the volume demonstrates that libretti are now very much within the purview of contemporary humanistic scholarship....

One of the most original and engaging composers of the twentieth century, Leos Janacek is now regarded as one of its major musical dramatists. His operas have become a regular part of the repertory, but a full understanding of their diverse subjects and backgrounds has been hampered by the lack of source materials in English. John Tyrrell has here selected and translated the chief literary documents relating to the genesis and early performances of each of the composer's nine operas and presented them in the form of a compelling documentary narrative. Janacek was a vigorous letter-writer...

Although opera figured importantly in the French quarrel of the Ancients versus the Moderns and in the English discussions of heroic tragedy, it was in Germany that its role in the development of criticism and aesthetics was most pronounced. Beginning with this observation, Gloria Flaherty tries to show how, from its very inception and through most of its history, opera was related not only to the revival of ancient drama and the evolution of modern theater, but also to the development of modern critical thought.

The author provides a comprehensive treatment of the writings both for...

The staging of opera has become immensely controversial over the last twenty years. Tom Sutcliffe here offers an engaging and far-reaching book about opera performance and interpretation. This work is a unique tribute to the most distinctive and adventurous achievements in the theatrical interpretation of opera as it has developed in recent decades. Readers will find descriptions of the most original and successful avant-garde opera productions in Britain, Europe, and America. Sutcliffe beautifully illustrates how updating, transposition, or relocation, and a variety of unexpected imagery...

From its earliest appearance in the mid-1600s, the lyric theater form of zarzuela captivated Spanish audiences with its witty writing and lively musical scores. Clinton D. Young's Music Theater and Popular Nationalism in Spain, 1880--1930 persuasively links zarzuela's celebration of Spanish history and culture to the development of concepts of nationalism and national identity at the dawn of the twentieth century.

As a weak Spanish government focused its energy on preventing a recurrence of mid-nineteenth-century political upheavals, the project of articulating a national identity...

Both in opera studies and in most operatic works, the singing body is often taken for granted. In Postopera: Reinventing the Voice-Body, Jelena Novak reintroduces an awareness of the physicality of the singing body to opera studies. Arguing that the voice-body relationship itself is a producer of meaning, she furthermore posits this relationship as one of the major driving forces in recent opera. She takes as her focus six contemporary operas - La Belle et la Bete (Philip Glass), Writing to Vermeer (Louis Andriessen, Peter Greenaway), Three Tales (Steve Reich,...

In Performing Opera: A Practical Guide for Singers and Directors Michael Ewans provides a detailed and practical workbook to performing many of the most commonly produced operas. Drawing on examples from twenty-four operas ranging in period from Gluck and Mozart to Britten and Tippett, it illustrates exactly how opera functions as dramatic form.

Grounded in close analyses of performances of thirty scenes and five whole operas by first-rate singers and celebrated directors, Performing Opera provides readers with an appreciation of the unique challenges and skills...