Download or read book Performing Opera written by Michael Ewans and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2016-02-25 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 required by performers and directors. It will assist them in their own performance and equip them with detailed knowledge of works most commonly featured in the repertoire. In the first part of the book the analysis progresses from scenes in which the singers are silent, via arias and monologues, duets and confrontations, up to ensembles. Wider issues are subsequently addressed: encounters with offstage events, encounters with the numinous, characterization, and the sense of inevitability in tragic opera.
Download or read book Divas and Scholars written by Philip Gossett and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-09-15 with total page 699 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2007 Otto Kinkeldey Award from the American Musicological Society and the 2007 Deems Taylor Award from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers. Divas and Scholars is a dazzling and beguiling account of how opera comes to the stage, filled with Philip Gossett’s personal experiences of triumphant—and even failed—performances and suffused with his towering and tonic passion for music. Writing as a fan, a musician, and a scholar, Gossett, the world's leading authority on the performance of Italian opera, brings colorfully to life the problems, and occasionally the scandals, that attend the production of some of our most favorite operas. Gossett begins by tracing the social history of nineteenth-century Italian theaters in order to explain the nature of the musical scores from which performers have long worked. He then illuminates the often hidden but crucial negotiations opera scholars and opera conductors and performers: What does it mean to talk about performing from a critical edition? How does one determine what music to perform when multiple versions of an opera exist? What are the implications of omitting passages from an opera in a performance? In addition to vexing questions such as these, Gossett also tackles issues of ornamentation and transposition in vocal style, the matters of translation and adaptation, and even aspects of stage direction and set design. Throughout this extensive and passionate work, Gossett enlivens his history with reports from his own experiences with major opera companies at venues ranging from the Metropolitan and Santa Fe operas to the Rossini Opera Festival at Pesaro. The result is a book that will enthrall both aficionados of Italian opera and newcomers seeking a reliable introduction to it—in all its incomparable grandeur and timeless allure.
Download or read book Performing Homer The Voyage of Ulysses from Epic to Opera written by Wendy Heller and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-07-23 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, attributed to Homer, are among the oldest surviving works of literature derived from oral performance. Deeply embedded in these works is the notion that they were intended to be heard: there is something musical about Homer's use of language and a vivid quality to his images that transcends the written page to create a theatrical experience for the listener. Indeed, it is precisely the theatrical quality of the poems that would inspire later interpreters to cast the Odyssey and the Iliad in a host of other media-novels, plays, poems, paintings, and even that most elaborate of all art forms, opera, exemplified by no less a work than Monteverdi's Il ritorno di Ulisse in patria. In Performing Homer: The Voyage of Ulysses from Epic to Opera, scholars in classics, drama, Italian literature, art history, and musicology explore the journey of Homer's Odyssey from ancient to modern times. The book traces the reception of the Odyssey though the Italian humanist sources—from Dante, Petrarch, and Ariosto—to the treatment of the tale not only by Monteverdi but also such composers as Elizabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, Gluck, and Alessandro Scarlatti, and the dramatic and poetic traditions thereafter by such modern writers as Derek Walcott and Margaret Atwood.
Download or read book Singing Acting and Movement in Opera written by Mark Ross Clark and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2009-04-09 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "... a remarkable collection of observations and reflections on past experiences by many excellent artists and teachers that will doubtless help... those interested in creating 'opera magic.'" -- Tito Capobianco Singing, Acting, and Movement in Opera is designed for use in opera and musical theater workshops and by beginning professional singers. Drawing on years of research, teaching, and performing, Mark Ross Clark provides an overview of dramatic methodology for the singing actor, encouraging the student's active participation through practical exercises and application to well-known works. The Singer-getics method emphasizes integration of the various dimensions of opera performance, creating synergies among vocal performance, character development, facial expression, and movement on the stage. The book presents important information about stagecraft, characterization, posture, historical styles, performance anxiety, aria, and scene analysis. Excerpts from interviews with performers, directors, conductors, coaches, composers, and teachers offer insights and advice, allowing the reader to "meet the artists." An appendix by postural alignment specialist Emily Bogard describes techniques of relaxation and self-awareness for the performer. This lively book will appeal to students, teachers, professionals, and general readers alike.
Download or read book Conducting Opera written by Joseph Rescigno and published by University of North Texas Press. This book was released on 2020-06-15 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conducting Opera discusses operas in the standard repertory from the perspective of a conductor with a lifetime of experience performing them. It focuses on Joseph Rescigno’s approach to preparing and performing these masterworks in order to realize what opera can uniquely achieve: a fusion of music and drama resulting in a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. Opening with a chapter discussing his performance philosophy, Rescigno then covers Mozart’s most-performed operas, standards of the bel canto school including Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia, five of Verdi’s works including La traviata, a selection of Wagner’s compositions followed by French Romantic operas such as Bizet’s Carmen, Puccini’s major works, and finally four operas by Richard Strauss. A useful appendix contains a convenient guide to the scores available online. Conducting Opera includes practical advice about propelling a story forward and bringing out the drama that the music is meant to supply, as well as how to support singers in their most difficult moments. Rescigno identifies particularly problematic passages and supplies suggestions about how to navigate them. In addition, he provides advice on staying true to the several styles under discussion.
Download or read book Performing Images written by Judith T. Zeitlin and published by Smart Museum of Art, the University of C. This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Writing in the early nineteenth century, the French traveler and cleric Abbé Huc exclaimed: "There is, perhaps, not a people in the world who carry so far their taste and passion for theatrical entertainments as the Chinese.” This taste and passion for the theater was not restricted to the stage, but permeated the visual and material world of everyday life from the village to the court. The visual spectacle of this theater is well known, displayed primarily through colorful costumes, props, and face painting. What is less known is the extent to which operatic characters and stories were favored as pictorial and decorative motifs across the full spectrum of visual mediums, from courtly scroll paintings, popular New Year prints, illustrated woodblock books and painted fans to carved utensils, ceramics, textiles, and dioramas.
Download or read book The Monster I Am Today written by Kevin Simmonds and published by Northwestern University Press. This book was released on 2021-07-15 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Overture -- Performance -- Postlude.
Download or read book Opera Cat written by Tess Weaver and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2002 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the opera diva Madame SoSo gets laryngitis, her singing cat Alma fills in for her.
Download or read book Opera 101 written by Fred Plotkin and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2013-07-16 with total page 512 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 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 Chinatown Opera Theater in North America written by Nancy Yunhwa Rao and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2017-01-11 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Awards: Irving Lowens Award, Society for American Music (SAM), 2019 Music in American Culture Award, American Musicological Society (AMS), 2018 Certificate of Merit for Best Historical Research in Recorded Country, Folk, Roots, or World Music, Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC), 2018 Outstanding Achievement in Humanities and Cultural Studies: Media, Visual, and Performance Studies, Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS), 2019 The Chinatown opera house provided Chinese immigrants with an essential source of entertainment during the pre–World War II era. But its stories of loyalty, obligation, passion, and duty also attracted diverse patrons into Chinese American communities Drawing on a wealth of new Chinese- and English-language research, Nancy Yunhwa Rao tells the story of iconic theater companies and the networks and migrations that made Chinese opera a part of North American cultures. Rao unmasks a backstage world of performers, performance, and repertoire and sets readers in the spellbound audiences beyond the footlights. But she also braids a captivating and complex history from elements outside the opera house walls: the impact of government immigration policy; how a theater influenced a Chinatown's sense of cultural self; the dissemination of Chinese opera music via recording and print materials; and the role of Chinese American business in sustaining theatrical institutions. The result is a work that strips the veneer of exoticism from Chinese opera, placing it firmly within the bounds of American music and a profoundly American experience.
Download or read book Popular Chinese Literature and Performing Arts in the People s Republic of China 1949 1979 written by Bonnie S. Mcdougall and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2024-07-19 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
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 in the Viennese Home from Mozart to Rossini written by Nancy November and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2024-01-18 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A unique window on the world of nineteenth-century amateur music-making provided by the study of domestic musical arrangements of opera.
Download or read book Chinese Street Opera in Singapore written by Tong Soon Lee and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2024-02-12 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since Singapore declared independence from Malaysia in 1965, Chinese street opera has played a significant role in defining Singaporean identity. Carefully tracing the history of amateur and professional performances in Singapore, Tong Soon Lee reflects on the role of street performance in fostering cultural nationalism and entrepreneurship. He explains that the government welcomes Chinese street opera performances because they combine tradition and modernism and promote a national culture that brings together Singapore's four main ethnic groups--Eurasian, Malay, Chinese, and South Asian. Chinese Street Opera in Singapore documents the ways in which this politically motivated art form continues to be influenced and transformed by Singaporean politics, ideology, and context in the twenty-first century. By performing Chinese street opera, amateur troupes preserve their rich heritage, underscoring the Confucian mind-set that a learned person engages in the arts for moral and unselfish purposes. Educated performers also control behavior, emotions, and values. They are creative and innovative, and their use of new technologies indicates a modern, entrepreneurial spirit. Their performances bring together diverse ethnic groups to watch and perform, Lee argues, while also encouraging a national attitude focused on both remembering the past and preparing for the future in Singapore.
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 The Dance and Opera Stage Manager s Toolkit written by Susan Fenty Studham and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-09-30 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Dance and Opera Stage Manager’s Toolkit details unique perspectives and approaches to support stage managers beginning to navigate the fields of dance and opera stage management in live performance. This book demystifies the genre-specific protocols and vocabularies for stage managers who might be unfamiliar with these fields and discusses common practices. Filled with valuable industry-tested tools, templates, and practical information, The Dance and Opera Stage Manager’s Toolkit is designed to assist stage managers interested in pursuing these performance genres. The book also includes interviews and contributions from a range of professional stage managers working in dance and opera. From the student stage manager studying in Theatrical Design and Production university programs to the experienced stage manager wanting to broaden their skill set, this book provides resources and advice for a successful transition into these worlds. The Dance and Opera Stage Manager’s Toolkit includes access to an online repository of resources and paperwork examples to help jumpstart the reader’s journey into dance and opera stage management. To access these resources, visit www.routledge.com/9780367566579.
