Sudden Death in Opera
Sudden Death in Opera

Author: Michael Trimble

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2021-09-28

Total Pages: 641

ISBN-13: 1527575357

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

An aspect of dying in opera, rarely observed or commented on, is Sudden Unexpected Death. There are many deaths in this melodramatic genre: most follow expected causes like murder, suicide, or old age. This book explores those deaths which occur without obvious natural causes. These are often central to the overall drama of the opera, representing denouements forming the epiphany of the story and the apotheosis for the audience. The book identifies 50 operas where such events occur, exploring the role of the dramatis personae, the circumstances of their dying, and specific themes that emerge. These include a preponderance of females, especially in the 19th century, who die mainly at the end of the operas, often in the context of tragedy. It charts the growing awareness in the medical sciences of the unconscious forces driving human behaviour, including liminal mental states and trances, which influenced these operas and continue to affect human behaviour to the present day. In addition, the changing philosophies that are intertwined with operatic narratives, in particular stemming from Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, are important in the book’s exegesis, as is the special role of Wagner’s compositions. This leads to the exploration of recurrent concepts such as the Liebestod, the ewig Weibliche and redemption itself.

Sudden Death in Opera
Sudden Death in Opera

Author: Michael Trimble

Publisher:

Published: 2023-04-22

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781527597952

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

An aspect of dying in opera, rarely observed or commented on, is Sudden Unexpected Death. There are many deaths in this melodramatic genre: most follow expected causes like murder, suicide, or old age. This book explores those deaths which occur without obvious natural causes. These are often central to the overall drama of the opera, representing denouements forming the epiphany of the story and the apotheosis for the audience. The book identifies 50 operas where such events occur, exploring the role of the dramatis personae, the circumstances of their dying, and specific themes that emerge. These include a preponderance of females, especially in the 19th century, who die mainly at the end of the operas, often in the context of tragedy. It charts the growing awareness in the medical sciences of the unconscious forces driving human behaviour, including liminal mental states and trances, which influenced these operas and continue to affect human behaviour to the present day. In addition, the changing philosophies that are intertwined with operatic narratives, in particular stemming from Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, are important in the book's exegesis, as is the special role of Wagner's compositions. This leads to the exploration of recurrent concepts such as the Liebestod, the ewig Weibliche and redemption itself.

Dance and Drama in French Baroque Opera
Dance and Drama in French Baroque Opera

Author: Rebecca Harris-Warrick

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2016-10-27

Total Pages: 505

ISBN-13: 1107137896

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Examines the evolving practices in music, librettos, choreographed dance, and staging throughout the history of French Baroque opera.

Opera, Emotion, and the Antipodes Volume I
Opera, Emotion, and the Antipodes Volume I

Author: Jane W. Davidson

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-12-29

Total Pages: 253

ISBN-13: 1000299864

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

There can be little doubt that opera and emotion are inextricably linked. From dramatic plots driven by energetic producers and directors to the conflicts and triumphs experienced by all associated with opera’s staging to the reactions and critiques of audience members, emotion is omnipresent in opera. Yet few contemplate the impact that the customary cultural practices of specific times and places have upon opera’s ability to move emotions. Taking Australia as a case study, this two-volume collection of extended essays demonstrates that emotional experiences, discourses, displays and expressions do not share universal significance but are at least partly produced, defined, and regulated by culture. Spanning approximately 170 years of opera production in Australia, the authors show how the emotions associated with the specific cultural context of a nation steeped in egalitarian aspirations and marked by increasing levels of multiculturalism have adjusted to changing cultural and social contexts across time. Volume I adopts an historical, predominantly nineteenth-century perspective, while Volume II applies historical, musicological, and ethnological approaches to discuss subsequent Australian operas and opera productions through to the twenty-first century. With final chapters pulling threads from the two volumes together, Opera, Emotion, and the Antipodes establishes a model for constructing emotion history from multiple disciplinary perspectives.

Janácek's Operas
Janácek's Operas

Author: John Tyrrell

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2014-07-14

Total Pages: 440

ISBN-13: 1400863015

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

One of the most original and engaging composers of the twentieth century, Leos Janáçek 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. Janáçek was a vigorous letter-writer and kept every letter he received. A vast quantity of material on his life has survived, providing a unique insight into his working methods and attitudes toward his operas. Scrupulously translated and annotated, the sources in this volume have not previously been brought together in this way. Some have appeared in scattered and often inaccessible publications in Czech, and others, such as the sequence of daily letters that Janáçek wrote to his wife during the rehearsals for the Prague premiere of Jenufa, or his instructions to his librettist for Fate, have never been published before. The book is complemented by a chronology of Janáçek's operas keyed to the numbered documents in each chapter, a bibliography, and a list of sources. Drawing on twenty-five years of work at the Janáçek archive in Brno, this work is a classic of music documentary scholarship. Originally published in 1992. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Wagner and Suicide
Wagner and Suicide

Author: John Louis DiGaetani

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2010-06-25

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 9780786480449

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Composer Richard Wagner (1813-1883) likely suffered from a manic-depressive disorder but in his time very little was known about mental illness, and suicide was not a topic for general discussion. Wagner was often plagued by extreme mood swings; he used his operas, especially the librettos, to express himself and his personal difficulties. This investigation of the suicidal themes in Wagner's life and operas--Die Fliegender Hollander, Tannhauser, Lohengrin, Tristan und Isolde, Die Meistersinger, the Ring cycle, and Parsifal--shows how manic-depressive illness, particularly the depressive part of it, affected Wagner's life and art. It also analyzes the influence of Giambattista Vico's theories of cycles (and how these theories appeared in Wagner's work), suicide as a theatrical and operatic phenomenon, and the way in which the theme of suicide has appeared in other works of the literary and performing arts.

Queer Opera
Queer Opera

Author: Andrew Sutherland

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2023-03-27

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 1666906085

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In Queer Opera, Andrew Sutherland argues that operas often reflect characteristics of the society and epistime in which they are written but that they also do much more than that; operas have agency. LGBTQ+ social, cultural, and political issues have become an increasingly defining feature of twenty-first century life, and as agency for change, composers have turned to opera to underscore the lived queer experience. Sutherland posits that operas written before the sexual revolution of the mid-twentieth century utilized a codified language both in the libretto and score, communicating with those observers open to a queer reading. He explores the growing trend of local, small-scale, independent opera companies seen around the world towards the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and argues that this has emboldened queer artists to reclaim opera as a queer space. He further argues that for several centuries, opera houses have been safe havens for queer composers, librettists, performers, and designers, and yet it is only relatively recently that any serious attempt at queer representation in operatic works has begun to be realized. In this book, he examines narratives and music of selected operas to walk through queer history in Western societies and shines a light on how many of opera’s well-known characters, based on historical figures who represent pivotal moments in the queer story, are responsible in a variety of ways for the continued struggle for queer acceptance.

A Short History of Opera
A Short History of Opera

Author: Donald Jay Grout

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 1049

ISBN-13: 0231119585

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

"The fourth edition incorporates new scholarship that traces the most important developments in the evolution of musical drama. After surveying anticipations of the operatic form in the lyric theater of the Greeks, medieval dramatic music, and other forerunners, the book reveals the genre's beginnings in the seventeenth century and follows its progress to the present day."--Jacket.

Morality and Viennese Opera in the Age of Mozart and Beethoven
Morality and Viennese Opera in the Age of Mozart and Beethoven

Author: Martin Nedbal

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2016-09-13

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 1317094093

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book explores how the Enlightenment aesthetics of theater as a moral institution influenced cultural politics and operatic developments in Vienna between the mid-eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Moralistic viewpoints were particularly important in eighteenth-century debates about German national theater. In Vienna, the idea that vernacular theater should cultivate the moral sensibilities of its German-speaking audiences became prominent during the reign of Empress Maria Theresa, when advocates of German plays and operas attempted to deflect the imperial government from supporting exclusively French and Italian theatrical performances. Morality continued to be a dominant aspect of Viennese operatic culture in the following decades, as critics, state officials, librettists, and composers (including Gluck, Mozart, and Beethoven) attempted to establish and define German national opera. Viennese concepts of operatic didacticism and national identity in theater further transformed in response to the crisis of Emperor Joseph II’s reform movement, the revolutionary ideas spreading from France, and the war efforts in facing Napoleonic aggression. The imperial government promoted good morals in theatrical performances through the institution of theater censorship, and German-opera authors cultivated intensely didactic works (such as Die Zauberflöte and Fidelio) that eventually became the cornerstones for later developments of German culture.

Kickstarting Italian Opera in the Andes
Kickstarting Italian Opera in the Andes

Author: José Manuel Izquierdo König

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2023-01-31

Total Pages: 137

ISBN-13: 1009223011

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

During the 19th century, Italian opera became truly transatlantic and its rapid expansion is one of the most exciting new areas of study in music and the performing arts. Beyond the Atlantic coasts, opera searched for new spaces to expand its reach. This Element discusses about the Italian opera in Andean countries like Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia during the 1840s and focuses on opera as a product that both challenged and was challenged in the Andes by other forms of performing arts, behaviours, technologies, material realities, and business models.