Download or read book Opera and the City written by Andrea Goldman and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2013-12-10 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In late imperial China, opera transmitted ideas across the social hierarchy about the self, family, society, and politics. Beijing attracted a diverse array of opera genres and audiences and, by extension, served as a hub for the diffusion of cultural values. It is in this context that historian Andrea S. Goldman harnesses opera as a lens through which to examine urban cultural history. Her meticulous yet playful account takes up the multiplicity of opera types that proliferated at the time, exploring them as contested sites through which the Qing court and commercial playhouses negotiated influence and control over the social and moral order. Opera performance blurred lines between public and private life, and offered a stage on which to act out gender and class transgressions. This work illuminates how the state and various urban constituencies manipulated opera to their own ends, and sheds light on empire-wide transformations underway at the time.

Download or read book Mad Scenes and Exit Arias written by Heidi Waleson and published by Metropolitan Books. This book was released on 2018-10-02 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Wall Street Journal's opera critic, a wide-ranging narrative history of how and why the New York City Opera went bankrupt—and what it means for the future of the arts In October 2013, the arts world was rocked by the news that the New York City Opera—“the people’s opera”—had finally succumbed to financial hardship after 70 years in operation. The company had been a fixture on the national opera scene—as the populist antithesis of the grand Metropolitan Opera, a nurturing home for young American talent, and a place where new, lively ideas shook up a venerable art form. But NYCO’s demise represented more than the loss of a cherished organization: it was a harbinger of massive upheaval in the performing arts—and a warning about how cultural institutions would need to change in order to survive. Drawing on extensive research and reporting, Heidi Waleson, one of the foremost American opera critics, recounts the history of this scrappy company and reveals how, from the beginning, it precariously balanced an ambitious artistic program on fragile financial supports. Waleson also looks forward and considers some better-managed, more visionary opera companies that have taken City Opera’s lessons to heart. Above all, Mad Scenes and Exit Arias is a story of money, ego, changes in institutional identity, competing forces of populism and elitism, and the ongoing debate about the role of the arts in society. It serves as a detailed case study not only for an American arts organization, but also for the sustainability and management of nonprofit organizations across the country.

Download or read book George Tsypin Opera Factory written by George Tsypin and published by Princeton Architectural Press. This book was released on 2016-10-18 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based in New York City—in the grit, steel girders, and graffiti of the metropolis—George Tsypin's Opera Factory creates visions of towering gods, underwater kingdoms, constructivist reveries, skyscraping towers, and earth-bound angels. Tsypin's award-winning designs are produced around the world. This lavishly illustrated monograph introduces Tsypin's designs for twenty productions—including the musicals Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark and The Little Mermaid; operas Oedipus Rex and the Ring Cycle; the opening ceremony of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi; Cirque du Soleil's Oasis; and the Seaglass Carousel in Battery Park. Tsypin uses each project as a starting point for meditations on creativity and the fleeting nature of performance that will rivet designers, artists, performers, and anyone interested in the creative process.

Download or read book Opera written by Franklin Mesa and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-05-07 with total page 477 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This encyclopedia includes entries for 1,153 world premiere (and other significant) performances of operas in Europe, the United States, Latin America and Russia. Entries offer details about key persons, arias, interesting facts, and date and location of each premiere. There is a biographical dictionary with 1,288 entries on historical and modern operatic singers, composers, librettists, and conductors. Fully indexed and with a bibliography.

Download or read book Cather and Opera written by David McKay Powell and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2022-05-18 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout her fiction, Willa Cather mentioned forty-seven operas. References to opera appear in all but three of her twelve novels and in roughly half of her short stories. Despite a dearth of musical education, Cather produced astute writing about the genre beginning in her earliest criticism and continuing throughout her career. She counted opera stars among her close friends, and according to Edith Lewis, her companion throughout adulthood, the two women frequently visited the theater, even in the early days, when purchasing tickets to attend performances proved a financial sacrifice. Melding cultural history with thoughtful readings of her works and discussions of opera’s complex place in turn-of-the-century America, David McKay Powell’s Cather and Opera offers the first book-length study of what drew the writer so powerfully and repeatedly to the art form. With close attention to Cather’s fiction and criticism, Powell posits that at the heart of both her work and the operatic corpus dwells an innate tension between high artistic ideals and popular acceptance, often figured as a clash between compositional integrity and raw, personal emotion. Considering her connection to opera in both historical and intertextual terms, Cather and Opera investigates what operatic references mean in Cather’s writing, along with what the opera represented to her throughout her life.

Download or read book The Opera written by Joseph Wechsberg and published by Plunkett Lake Press. This book was released on 2023-09-02 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Opera is enjoyed only by those who know something about it. This is the idea behind this book... It was written for people who love opera and want to know a little more about its history and evolution, its lore and lure, and the people who create and re-create it.” — Joseph Wechsberg, Foreword to The Opera Joseph Wechsberg — musician and lifelong opera addict, claqueur, listener and critic — takes the reader on a journey through centuries of operatic history, from Dafne, performed during the 1590s, generally thought to be the first opera, to productions at La Scala, the Metropolitan or Vienna’s Staatsoper. He explains why, of the 42,000 operas said to have been written, only a few hundred survive. These classics are discussed, with analyses of their thematic components and musical qualities and biographical vignettes of their composers, and performers. “Mr. Wechsberg has written this book very much with the inexperienced opera-goer in mind... a readable and enjoyable summary of all that the novice to the opera house should know about. Within his survey appears a short account of operatic history and material on all the people concerned with opera: composers and librettists, singers, players, managers, conductors, producers, audiences, claques and critics.” — M.F.R., Music & Letters “Even the informed reader can learn from Wechsberg how to integrate his material and achieve a degree of perspective when viewing the enormous historical landscape that provides the background for the evolution of [the opera].” — Elaine Brody, Notes

Download or read book Opera Companies and Houses of the United States written by Karyl Lynn Zietz and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2024-10-15 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a state-by-state guide to more than 90 opera houses and companies in the United States. Inaugural performances, a history of opera in the city, an ordinary season's repertory, and performers and directors are highlighted.

Download or read book Opera Viva written by Ezra Schabas and published by Dundurn. This book was released on 2000-09-01 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It started with a festival - three classic operas performed in a theatre in Toronto. But when it became apparent that there was a need for a national opera company, an organization was founded that would go on to become one of the largest performing arts organizations in the country. The Canadian Opera Company was born in 1950, and is now one of the major opera companies in North America. The Company has toured extensively throughout Canada and the United States, and has delighted audiences as far away as Australia and Hong Kong, all the while finding the time to record frequently and develop special operatic presentations for children. More than just a group of performers, the COC also provides a training program for young professional singers, and a series of commissions of new works from both up-and-coming and established composers. Opera Viva is a history of the Company, but it is more than that: it is also a history of Canada’s cultural growth in the second half of the twentieth century, a time when the Canadian Opera Company became central to Canada’s musical life. As the story of the Company unfolds, the figures and personalities that were integral to the building of this landmark of Canadian culture are brought to life.

Download or read book The Dramatic Index for written by Frederick Winthrop Faxon and published by . This book was released on 1922 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Issues for 1912-16, 1919- accompanied by an appendix: The Dramatic books and plays (in English) (title varies slightly) This bibliography was incorporated into the main list in 1917-18.

Download or read book Opera in the Media Age written by Paul Fryer and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-05-14 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of essays explores the relationship between opera and the development of media technology from the late 19th to the early 21st century. Taking an international perspective, the contributing authors, each with extensive experience as scholars or practitioners of the art, cover a variety of topics including audio, video and film recording, contemporary critical responses, popular and "high brow" culture, live and recorded performance, lighting and performance technology, media marketing and advertising.

Download or read book Opera in a Multicultural World written by Mary Ingraham and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-06-19 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through historical and contemporary examples, this book critically explores the relevance and expressions of multicultural representation in western European operatic genres in the modern world. It reveals their approaches to reflecting identity, transmitting meaning, and inspiring creation, as well as the ambiguities and contradictions that occur across the time and place(s) of their performance. This collection brings academic researchers in opera studies into conversation with previously unheard voices of performers, critics, and creators to speak to issues of race, ethnicity, and culture in the genre. Together, they deliver a powerful critique of the perpetuation of the values and practices of dominant cultures in operatic representations of intercultural encounters. Essays accordingly cross methodological boundaries in order to focus on a central issue in the emerging field of coloniality: the hierarchies of social and political power that include the legacy of racialized practices. In theorizing coloniality through intercultural exchange in opera, authors explore a range of topics and case studies that involve immigrant, indigenous, exoticist, and other cultural representations and consider a broad repertoire that includes lesser-known Canadian operas, Chinese- and African-American performances, as well as works by Haydn, Strauss, Puccini, and Wagner, and in performances spanning three continents and over two centuries. In these ways, the collection contributes to the development of a more integrated understanding of the interdisciplinary fields inherent in opera, including musicology, sociology, anthropology, and others connected to Theatre, Gender, and Cultural Studies.

Download or read book Opera Companies and Houses of Western Europe Canada Australia and New Zealand written by Karyl Lynn Zietz and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2024-10-15 with total page 501 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although books have been written about various opera houses throughout the world, no one work has covered more than a relatively small number of the larger, well known companies and houses, and none have made more than brief mention of the smaller houses. No book has comprehensively listed opera repertories. Little, in sum, has been written about any of the smaller companies and houses located in non-English-speaking countries. This is the most comprehensive reference book ever written on opera companies and houses in Western Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand--over 300, from the well known to the smaller. Each entry includes a history of the opera house or company, the works (title and composer) and type of productions offered, company staff, world and country premieres, repertory, and practical information on the theater's address, nearby hotel accommodations and how to order tickets. Most entries conclude with a bibliography.

Download or read book Opera 101 written by Fred Plotkin and published by Hachette Books. This book was released on 2013-07-16 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Opera is the fastest growing of all the performing arts, attracting audiences of all ages who are enthralled by the gorgeous music, vivid drama, and magnificent production values. If you've decided that the time has finally come to learn about opera and discover for yourself what it is about opera that sends your normally reserved friends into states of ecstatic abandon, this is the book for you. Opera 101 is recognized as the standard text in English for anyone who wants to become an opera lover--a clear, friendly, and truly complete handbook to learning how to listen to opera, whether on the radio, on recordings, or live at the opera house. Fred Plotkin, an internationally respected writer and teacher about opera who for many years was performance manager of the Metropolitan Opera, introduces the reader (whatever his or her level of musical knowledge) to all the elements that make up opera, including: A brief, entertaining history of opera; An explanation of key operatic concepts, from vocal types to musical conventions; Hints on the best way to approach the first opera you attend and how to best understand what is happening both offstage and on; Lists of recommended books and recordings, and the most complete traveler's guide to opera houses around the world. The major part of Opera 101 is devoted to an almost minute-by-minute analysis of eleven key operas, ranging from Verdi's thunderous masterpiece Rigoletto and Puccini's electrifying Tosca through works by Mozart, Donizetti, Rossini, Offenbach, Tchaikovsky, and Wagner, to the psychological complexities of Richard Strauss's Elektra. Once you have completed Opera 101, you will be prepared to see and hear any opera you encounter, thanks to this book's unprecedentedly detailed and enjoyable method of revealing the riches of opera.

Download or read book Municipal Aid to Music in America written by Kenneth S. Clark and published by . This book was released on 1925 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Executive Documents written by Ohio and published by . This book was released on 1908 with total page 1016 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Annual Report written by National Endowment for the Arts and published by . This book was released on 1981 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reports for 1980-19 also include the Annual report of the National Council on the Arts.

Download or read book Annual Magazine Subject index written by and published by . This book was released on 1913 with total page 652 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: