Download or read book French Grand Opera and the Historical Imagination written by Sarah Hibberd and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book French Grand Opera and the Historical Imagination written by Sarah Hibberd and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009-04-30 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Closely examining five French operas, this book reveals how and why grand opera sought to bring the past alive.
Download or read book Grand Opera Outside Paris written by Jens Hesselager and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-12-14 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nineteenth-century French grand opera was a musical and cultural phenomenon with an important and widespread transnational presence in Europe. Primary attention in the major studies of the genre has so far been on the Parisian context for which the majority of the works were originally written. In contrast, this volume takes account of a larger geographical and historical context, bringing the Europe-wide impact of the genre into focus. The book presents case studies including analyses of grand opera in small-town Germany and Switzerland; grand operas adapted for Scandinavian capitals, a cockney audience in London, and a court audience in Weimar; and Portuguese and Russian grand operas after the French model. Its overarching aim is to reveal how grand operas were used – performed, transformed, enjoyed and criticised, emulated and parodied – and how they became part of musical, cultural and political life in various European settings. The picture that emerges is complex and diversified, yet it also testifies to the interrelated processes of cultural and political change as bourgeois audiences, at varying paces and with local variations, increased their influence, and as discourses on language, nation and nationalism influenced public debates in powerful ways.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Music and Medievalism written by Stephen C. Meyer and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-02 with total page 736 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Oxford Handbook of Music and Medievalism provides a snapshot of the diverse ways in which medievalism--the retrospective immersion in the images, sounds, narratives, and ideologies of the European Middle Ages--powerfully transforms many of the varied musical traditions of the last two centuries. Thirty-three chapters from an international group of scholars explore topics ranging from the representation of the Middle Ages in nineteenth-century opera to medievalism in contemporary video game music, thereby connecting disparate musical forms across typical musicological boundaries of chronology and geography. While some chapters focus on key medievalist works such as Orff's Carmina Burana or Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films, others explore medievalism in the oeuvre of a single composer (e.g. Richard Wagner or Arvo Pärt) or musical group (e.g. Led Zeppelin). The topics of the individual chapters include both well-known works such as John Boorman's film Excalibur and also less familiar examples such as Eduard Lalo's Le Roi d'Ys. The authors of the chapters approach their material from a wide array of disciplinary perspectives, including historical musicology, popular music studies, music theory, and film studies, examining the intersections of medievalism with nationalism, romanticism, ideology, nature, feminism, or spiritualism. Taken together, the contents of the Handbook develop new critical insights that venture outside traditional methodological constraints and provide a capstone and point of departure for future scholarship on music and medievalism.
Download or read book A History of Opera written by Carolyn Abbate and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2015-09-08 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The best single volume ever written on the subject, such is its range, authority, and readability.”—Times Literary Supplement Why has opera transfixed and fascinated audiences for centuries? Carolyn Abbate and Roger Parker answer this question in their “effervescent, witty” (Die Welt, Germany) retelling of the history of opera, examining its development, the musical and dramatic means by which it communicates, and its role in society. Now with an expanded examination of opera as an institution in the twenty-first century, this “lucid and sweeping” (Boston Globe) narrative explores the tensions that have sustained opera over four hundred years: between words and music, character and singer, inattention and absorption. Abbate and Parker argue that, though the genre’s most popular and enduring works were almost all written in a distant European past, opera continues to change the viewer— physically, emotionally, intellectually—with its enduring power.
Download or read book Opera in Paris from the Empire to the Commune written by Mark Everist and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-12-10 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Studies in the history of French nineteenth-century stage music have blossomed in the last decade, encouraging a revision of the view of the primacy of Austro-German music during the period and rebalancing the scholarly field away from instrumental music (key to the Austro-German hegemony) and towards music for the stage. This change of emphasis is having an impact on the world of opera production, with new productions of works not heard since the nineteenth century taking their place in the modern repertory. This awakening of enthusiasm has come at something of a price. Selling French opera as little more than an important precursor to Verdi or Wagner has entailed a focus on works produced exclusively for the Paris Opéra at the expense of the vast range of other types of stage music produced in the capital: opéra comique, opérette, comédie-vaudeville and mélodrame, for example. The first part of this book therefore seeks to reintroduce a number of norms to the study of stage music in Paris: to re-establish contexts and conventions that still remain obscure. The second and third parts acknowledge Paris as an importer and exporter of opera, and its focus moves towards the music of its closest neighbours, the Italian-speaking states, and of its most problematic partners, the German-speaking states, especially the music of Weber and Wagner. Prefaced by an introduction that develops the volume’s overriding intellectual drivers of cultural exchange, genre and institution, this collection brings together twelve of the author’s previously published articles and essays, fully updated for this volume and translated into English for the first time.
Download or read book Grand Illusion written by Gabriela Cruz and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-08-19 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new and groundbreaking approach to the history of grand opera, Grand Illusion: Phantasmagoria in Nineteenth-Century Opera explores the illusion and illumination behind the form's rise to cultural eminence. Renowned opera scholar Gabriela Cruz argues that grand opera worked to awaken memory and feeling in a way never before experienced in the opera house, asserting that the concept of "spectacle" was the defining cultural apparatus of the art form after the 1820s. Parisian audiences at the Académie Royale de Musique were struck by the novelty and power of grand opera upon the introduction of gaslight illumination, a technological innovation that quickly influenced productions across the Western operatic world. With this innovation, grand opera transformed into an audio-visual spectacle, delivering dream-like images and evoking the ghosts of its audiences' past. Through case studies of operas by Giacomo Meyerbeer, Richard Wagner, and Giuseppe Verdi, Cruz demonstrates how these works became an increasingly sophisticated medium by which audiences could conjure up the past and be transported away from the breakdown of modern life. A historically informed narrative that traverses far and wide, from dingy popular theatres in post-revolutionary Paris, to nautical shows in London, and finally to Egyptian mummies, Grand Illusion provides a fresh departure from previous scholarship, highlighting the often-neglected visual side of grand opera.
Download or read book Daniel Fran ois Esprit Auber written by Robert Ignatius Letellier and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2010-10-12 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Daniel-François-Esprit Auber (1782-1871), the composer of La Muette de Portici (1828) and Fra Diavolo (1830), was once regarded as one of the great figures of music, a staple of the operatic repertoire in France, and indeed around the world. It is now almost impossible to understand the extent of his once universal fame, his influence on contemporary composers. His operas were in the theatre repertories of the world until the 1920s, and innumerable arrangements of them were published and sold everywhere. The ubiquity of his overtures—Masaniello, Fra Diavolo, The Bronze Horse, The Black Domino, The Crown Diamonds—once as popular as those of Rossini and Suppé, and the influence of his melodies and dance rhythms on piano and instrumental music, and on Romantic comic opera, was overwhelming. In his operas Auber avoided any excess in dramatic expression; all emotion and expressiveness, any vivid depiction of local milieu, were realized within his discreetly nuanced tones, always stamped with a Parisian elegance. His operas were loved in his native France until the years before the First World War, with Fra Diavolo and Le Domino noir last performed at the Opéra-Comique in 1909. Auber’s career was a record of this success and appreciation. His appointment to the Institute (1829) was followed by other prestigious posts: as Director of Concerts at Court (1839), director of the Paris Conservatoire (1842), Musical Director of the Imperial Chapel (1852), and Grand Officer of the Légion d’Honneur (1861). During his lifetime, six biographies appeared contemporaneously, with another six appearing posthumously in the period up to 1914. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, however, reactions to Wagner, Impressionism and the Neo-Classicism of the Ballet Russe resulted in a growing lack of interest in the ancient traditions of opéra-comique, with its charming plots, melodic directness and rhythmic élan. Boieldieu, Hérold, Adam and Auber were relegated to the dustbin of history. Only in Germany did the genre continue to flourish; Auber’s most enduring work is still performed there. His death in pitiful conditions during the Siege of Paris (1871), in the city he always loved, marked the end of an era. Auber now occupies a shadowy niche in the general consciousness as the name of the metro station nearest the Palais Garnier, and remains unknown and neglected (apart of course from Fra Diavolo), although his impact on the nineteenth-century operatic theatre was just as great as Rossini’s. The time has surely come for Auber’s life and work, especially in association with his life-long collaborator Eugène Scribe (1791-1861)—master dramatist and supreme librettist, a determining force in the history of opera—to be reassessed. Perhaps then the world will begin to hear more of Auber’s elegant gracious, life-affirming music, written to Scribe’s words. The aim of the present study is to offer an overview of the life and work of Auber by close examination of his forty operas, with consideration of origins, casting, plot, analysis of dramaturgy and musical style, and reception history. This is presented in the context of Auber's relationship to the dominant genres of early nineteenth century French culture, opéra comique and grand opéra. The three evolving periods of Auber's unique involvement with opéra comique are of principal concern. This analysis of the operas is made in the context of Auber's crucial working relationship with Scribe, who provided 38 of his libretti. Their cooperation is unique and of great importance on several literary, musical and cultural levels. The nature of their interaction and personal friendship is assessed by a translation of the extant correspondence between them, some 80 letters that have not appeared in English before. The presentation of each opera is illustrated by musical examples from all the scores, prints from the complete works of Scribe and other theatrical memorabilia. The study also contains bibliographies of Auber’s works and their contemporary arrangements, studies of Auber’s and Scribe’s life and work, their artistic and historical milieux, and a discography.
Download or read book The Operatic Archive written by Colleen Renihan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-04-03 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Operatic Archive: American Opera as History extends the growing interdisciplinary conversation in opera studies by drawing on new research in performance studies and the philosophy of history. Moving beyond traditional aesthetic conceptions of opera, this book argues for opera’s powerful potential for historical impact and engagement in late twentieth- and twenty-first-century works by American composers. Considering opera’s ability to serve as a vehicle for memory, historical experience, affect, presence, and the historical sublime, this volume demonstrates how opera’s ability to represent and evoke historical events and historical experience differs fundamentally from the representations and recreations of other modes (specifically, literary and dramatic representations). Building on the work of performance scholars such as Joseph Roach, Rebecca Schneider, and Diana Taylor, and in consultation with recent debates in the philosophy of history, the book will be of interest to a wide range of scholars and researchers, particularly those working in the areas of opera studies and performance studies.
Download or read book Masquerade written by Deborah Bell and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-12-31 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In its conventional meaning, masquerade refers to a festive gathering of people wearing masks and elegant costumes. But traditional forms of masquerade have evolved over the past century to include the representation of alternate identities in the media and venues of popular culture, including television, film, the internet, theater, museums, sports arenas, popular magazines and a range of community celebrations, reenactments and conventions. This collection of fresh essays examines the art and function of masquerade from a broad range of perspectives. From African slave masquerade in New World iconography, to the familiar Guy Fawkes masks of the Occupy Wall Street movement, to the branded identities created by celebrities like Madonna, Beyonce and Lady Gaga, the essays show how masquerade permeates modern life.
Download or read book National Traditions in Nineteenth Century Opera Volume I written by Steven Huebner and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-03-02 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume covers opera in Italy, France, England and the Americas during the long nineteenth century (1789-1914). The book is divided into four sections that are thematically, rather than geographically, conceived: Places-essays centering on contexts for operatic culture; Genres and Styles-studies dealing with the question of how operas in this period were put together; Critical Studies of individual works, exemplifying particular critical trends; and Performance.
Download or read book Caterina Cornaro written by Candida Syndikus and published by Waxmann Verlag. This book was released on 2013 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Caterina Cornaro (1454-1510) came from one of the most important Venetian families of her time and became the last queen of Cyprus. On the occasion of the fifth centenary of her death, an international conference was held in Venice in September 2010 - organised by the two editors of this volume. During that interdisciplinary event, well-known scholars from the fields of history, art history, literary history, archaeology, Byzantine studies and musicology presented the results of their most recent research across a broad subject area. The queen's biography and myth were traced, as well as the reception of this historical figure in art and on stage. Stress was laid upon socioeconomic and cultural phenomena resulting from the close contact between Venice and Cyprus during the Renaissance period, and also in focus was the literary production at Caterina's court 'in exile' in Venice and the neighbouring mainland. The present volume offers a collection of the conference's papers. The book contains the papers (in Italian, English and French) by / Il volume contiene i contributi (in lingua italiana, inglese e francese) di Monica Molteni, Candida Syndikus, Martin Gaier, Ursula Schadler-Saub, Lina Bolzoni, Rotraud von Kulessa, Tobias Leuker, Daria Perocco, Benjamin Arbel, Gilles Grivaud, Catherine Otten-Froux, Chryssa Maltezou, Tassos Papacostas, Lorenzo Calvelli, David Michael Metcalf, Arnold Jacobshagen, Angel Nicolaou-Konnari. Caterina Cornaro (1454-1510) venne da una delle più importanti famiglie veneziane del suo tempo e diventò l'ultima regina di Cipro. In occasione del quinto centenario della sua scomparsa si è tenuto in settembre 2010 un Convegno Internazionale di Studi, organizzato dalle due curatrici di questo volume. Autorevoli specialisti nei campi della storia, storia dell'arte, storia della letteratura, archeologia, musicologia e degli studi bizantini hanno presentato - in un'ottica interdisciplinare - le loro ricerche più recenti su un vasto ambito tematico. Questi atti ne raccolgono i risultati. Si ripercorre la biografia e il mito della regina Cornaro nonché la ricezione della figura storica nell'arte e sul palcoscenico. Vengono inoltre messi in risalto vari fenomeni socioeconomici e culturali nello stretto contatto tra Venezia e Cipro durante il periodo del Rinascimento. Infine, viene presa in considerazione la produzione letteraria alla sua corte 'in esilio' a Venezia e in Terraferma.
Download or read book Staging the Nation Opera and Nationalism in 19th Century Hungary written by Krisztina Lajosi and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2018-02-27 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Staging the Nation: Opera and Nationalism in 19th-Century Hungary, Krisztina Lajosi examines the crucial role of theatre and opera in the shaping of historical consciousness and the formation of national identity by turning opera-loving audiences into a national public.
Download or read book Female Singers on the French Stage 1830 1848 written by Kimberly White and published by . This book was released on 2018-05-24 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the profession of singing, operatic culture, and the representation of female performers on the nineteenth century French stage.
Download or read book Fromental Hal vy and His Operas 1842 1862 written by Robert Ignatius Letellier and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2021-04-20 with total page 754 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his lifetime, the opera composer Fromental Halévy was considered the leader of the French school; his admirers included Wagner, Berlioz, and later Mahler. Today, he is chiefly remembered for his grand tragic opera La Juive (1835). Halévy, a native of Paris, was active when the French capital was at the centre of the operatic world. His 30 operas worked within established genres of grand opéra and opéra-comique, and many of them attained considerable popularity across Europe and the wider world (such as La Reine de Chypre 1841, Charles VI 1843, Les Mousquetaires de la reine 1846, and Le Val d’Andorre 1848). Although acclaimed in their day, most have not been staged for decades. This study throws light on this shadowy figure, looking at his life, contemporary opinion about him, and, most importantly, his operas. Each one is examined in terms of its origin, libretto, musical features, and place in the vibrant critical journalism of mid-19th century France. The book provides musical examples and something of the rich iconography that accompanied the creation of his works.
Download or read book Medievalism and Nationalism in German Opera written by Michael S. Richardson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-11-29 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Medievalism, or the reception or interpretation of the Middle Ages, was a prominent aesthetic for German opera composers in the first half of the nineteenth century. A healthy competition to establish a Germanic operatic repertory arose at this time, and fascination with medieval times served a critical role in shaping the desire for a unified national and cultural identity. Using operas by Weber, Schubert, Marshner, Wagner, and Schumann as case studies, Richardson investigates what historical information was available to German composers in their recreations of medieval music, and whether or not such information had any demonstrable effect on their compositions. The significant role that nationalism played in the choice of medieval subject matter for opera is also examined, along with how audiences and critics responded to the medieval milieu of these works. In this book, readers will gain a clear understanding of the rise of German opera in the early nineteenth century and the cultural and historical context in which this occurred. This book will also provide insight on the reception of medieval history and medieval music in nineteenth-century Germany, and will demonstrate how medievalism and nationalism were mutually reinforcing phenomena at this time and place in history.
Download or read book Serial Forms written by Clare Pettitt and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-06-03 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Serial Forms: The Unfinished Project of Modernity, 1815-1848 proposes an entirely new way of reading the transition into the modern. It is the first book in a series of three which will take the reader up to the end of the First World War, moving from a focus on London to a global perspective. Serial Forms sets out the theoretical and historical basis for all three volumes. It suggests that, as a serial news culture and a stadial historicism developed together between 1815 and 1848, seriality became the dominant form of the nineteenth century. Through serial newsprint, illustrations, performances, and shows, the past and the contemporary moment enter into public visibility together. Serial Forms argues that it is through seriality that the social is represented as increasingly politically urgent. The insistent rhythm of the serial reorganizes time, recalibrates and rescales the social, and will prepare the way for the 1848 revolutions which are the subject of the next book. By placing their work back into the messy print and performance culture from which it originally appeared, Serial Forms is able to produce new and exciting readings of familiar authors such as Scott, Byron, Dickens, and Gaskell. Rather than offering a rarefied intellectual history or chopping up the period into 'Romantic' and 'Victorian', Clare Pettitt tracks the development of communications technologies and their impact on the ways in which time, history and virtuality are imagined.
