Download or read book Twentieth Century British Authors and the Rise of Opera in Britain written by Irene Morra and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-02-17 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first to examine in depth the contributions of major British authors such as W. H. Auden and E. M. Forster, as critics and librettists, to the rise of British opera in the twentieth century. The perceived literary values of British authors, as much as the musical innovations of British composers, informed the aesthetic development of British opera. Indeed, British opera emerged as a simultaneously literary and musical project. Too often, operatic adaptations are compared superficially to their original sources. This is a particular problem for British opera, which has become increasingly defined artistically by the literary sophistication of its narrative sources. The resulting collaborations between literary figures and composers have crucial implications for the development of both opera and literature. Twentieth-Century British Authors and the Rise of Opera in Britain reveals the importance of this literary involvement in operatic adaptation to literature and literary studies, to music and musicology, and to cultural and theoretical studies.
Download or read book The Rise of Romantic Opera written by Edward J. Dent and published by CUP Archive. This book was released on 1976-11-18 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dent's lectures here show that romantic opera had its origins not in Germany but in the music-dramas of revolutionary France.
Download or read book History Through the Opera Glass written by George Jellinek and published by Hal Leonard Corporation. This book was released on 2000 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: (Limelight). This first-of-its-kind, highly entertaining, and carefully researched account reveals how nearly 200 operas by leading composers and librettists have portrayed the major events and personalities of more than 2000 years of history. In a continuous and absorbing narrative, the book sweeps from Roman times to 1820, with a cast of characters that includes Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Attila, Charlemagne, Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, Catherine the Great, Napoleon and hundreds more. All are seen as the figures historians generally perceive them to have been and as their on-stage counterparts, created and re-imagined by some of opera's greatest artists.
Download or read book Opera in Seventeenth Century Venice written by Ellen Rosand and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2007-10-09 with total page 712 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In this elegantly constructed study of the early decades of public opera, the conflicts and cooperation of poets, composers, managers, designers, and singers—producing the art form that was soon to sweep the world and that has been dominant ever since—are revealed in their first freshness."—Andrew Porter "This will be a standard work on the subject of the rise of Venetian opera for decades. Rosand has provided a decisive contribution to the reshaping of the entire subject. . . . She offers a profoundly new view of baroque opera based on a solid documentary and historical-critical foundation. The treatment of the artistic self-consciousness and professional activities of the librettists, impresarios, singers, and composers is exemplary, as is the examination of their reciprocal relations. This work will have a positive effect not only on studies of 17th-century, but on the history of opera in general."—Lorenzo Bianconi
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of the Operatic Canon written by Cormac Newark and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020 with total page 639 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Opera has always been controversial, not only because of how vastly expensive it is to produce. It has historically been a vital and complex mixture of high art and commerce, socially elite and popular or middle-class, the new and the increasingly old. When a city wants a new landmark building, an opera house is very often the solution: why should this still be the case? The Oxford Handbook of the Operatic Canon examines how opera has become the concrete edifice it was never meant to be, by looking at how it evolved from a market entirely driven by novelty to one of the most arthritically canonic art forms still in existence. This new collection addresses questions that are key to opera's past, present and future. Why is the art form apparently so arthritically canonical, with the top ten titles, all more than a century old, accounting for nearly a quarter of all performances world-wide? Why is this top-heavy system of production becoming still more restrictive, even while the repertory is seemingly expanding, notably to include early music? Why did the operatic canon evolve so differently from that of concert music? And why has that evolution attracted so comparatively little attention from scholars? Why, finally, if opera houses all over the world are dutifully honoring their audiences' loyalty to these favorite works, are they having to struggle so hard financially? Answers to these and other problems are offered here by 26 musicologists, historians, and industry professionals working in a wide range of contexts. Topics range from the seventeenth century to the present day, and from Russia to England and continental Europe to the Americas. In an effort to reflect the contested nature of most of the issues facing opera, each topic is addressed by two essays, introduced jointly by the respective authors, and followed by a jointly compiled list of further reading. These paired essays complement each other in different ways: for example, by treating the same geographical location in different periods, by providing different national or regional perspectives on the same period, or by thinking through similar conceptual issues in contrasting or changing contexts. Posing its questions in fresh, provocative terms, The Oxford Handbook of the Operatic Canon challenges scholarly assumptions and expectations, and breathes fresh air into the fields of music and cultural history.
Download or read book Reader s Guide to British History written by David Loades and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-12-17 with total page 4319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Reader's Guide to British History is the essential source to secondary material on British history. This resource contains over 1,000 A-Z entries on the history of Britain, from ancient and Roman Britain to the present day. Each entry lists 6-12 of the best-known books on the subject, then discusses those works in an essay of 800 to 1,000 words prepared by an expert in the field. The essays provide advice on the range and depth of coverage as well as the emphasis and point of view espoused in each publication.
Download or read book The Operatic State written by Ruth Bereson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2003-09-02 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Operatic State examines the cultural, financial, and political investments that have gone into the maintenance of opera and opera houses in Europe, the USA and Australia. It analyses opera's nearly immutable form throughout wars, revolutions, and vast social changes throughout the world. Bereson argues that by legitimising the power of the state through universally recognised ceremonial ritual, opera enjoys a privileged status across three continents, often to the detriment of popular and indigenous art forms.
Download or read book Hamish MacCunn 1868 1916 A Musical Life written by Jennifer L. Oates and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-22 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hamish MacCunn’s career unfolded amidst the restructuring of British musical culture and the rewriting of the Western European political landscape. Having risen to fame in the late 1880s with a string of Scottish works, MacCunn further highlighted his Caledonian background by cultivating a Scottish artistic persona that defined him throughout his life. His attempts to broaden his appeal ultimately failed. This, along with his difficult personality and a series of poor professional choices, led to the slow demise of what began as a promising career. As the first comprehensive study of MacCunn’s life, the book illustrates how social and cultural situations as well as his personal relationships influenced his career. While his fierce loyalty to his friends endeared him to influential people who helped him throughout his career, his refusal of his Royal College of Music degree and his failure to complete early commissions assured him a difficult path. Drawing upon primary resources, Oates traces the development of MacCunn’s music chronologically, juxtaposing his Scottish and more cosmopolitan compositions within a discussion of his life and other professional activities. This picture of MacCunn and his music reveals on the one hand a talented composer who played a role in establishing national identity in British music and, on the other, a man who unwittingly sabotaged his own career.
Download or read book A History of English Dramatic Literature to the Death of Queen Anne written by Sir Adolphus William Ward and published by . This book was released on 1899 with total page 620 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Edward J Dent written by Karen Arrandale and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2023-01-17 with total page 563 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This first full biography of Edward J. Dent (1876-1957) covers not only his pioneering music scholarship and cultural activities but also his personal crusades on behalf of music and opera, gays, refugees, and the culturally destitute. Drawn from a wide variety of unpublished sources, from behind Dent?s carefully constructed public 0persona of a cosmopolitan gentleman scholar the picture emerges of a more complex and fascinating human being. His seminal works remain fresh and vital and his writing hugely entertaining, while his ideas on the importance of the arts in everyday life are as relevant as ever.
Download or read book Opera in the Jazz Age written by Alexandra Wilson and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Opera in the Jazz Age: Cultural Politics in 1920s Britain explores the interaction between opera and popular culture at a moment when there was a growing imperative to categorize art forms as "highbrow," "middlebrow," or "lowbrow." In this provocative and timely study, Alexandra Wilson considers how the opera debate of the 1920s continues to shape the ways in which we discuss the art form, and draws connections between the battle of the brows and present-day discussions about elitism.
Download or read book A Short History of Opera written by Donald Jay Grout and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 1049 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "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.
Download or read book On Music written by Benjamin Britten and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2003 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Benjamin Britten was a most reluctant public speaker. Yet his contributions were without doubt a major factor in the transformation during his lifetime of the structure of the art-music industry. This book, by bringing together all his published articles, unpublished speeches, drafts, and transcriptions of numerous radio interviews, explores the paradox of a reluctant yet influential cultural commentator, artist, and humanist. Whether talking about his own music, about the role of the artist in society, about music criticism, or wading into a debate on Soviet ideology at the height of the cold war, Britten always gave a performance which reinforced the notion of a private man who nonetheless saw the importance of public disclosure.
Download or read book Nineteenth Century British Music Studies written by Bennett Zon and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-05-23 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1999, this volume of essays arises from the first biennial Music in Nineteenth-Century Britain conference, held at the University of hull in July 1997. Like the conference, this book seeks to expand and reassess our current knowledge of musical life in Britain during the nineteenth century, as well as to challenge the preconceptions of earlier attitudes and scholarship. This volume covers a cohesive range of subjects and materials intended not only as a revision of past views and scholarship, but also as a tool for further research. It provides a vigorous reconsideration of the musical activity of the period.
Download or read book A Land of Liberty written by Julian Hoppit and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2000-06-22 with total page 602 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Glorious Revolution of 1688-9 was a decisive moment in England's history; an invading Dutch army forced James II to flee to France, and his son-in-law and daughter, William and Mary, were crowned as joint sovereigns. The wider consequences were no less startling: bloody war in Ireland, Union with Scotland, Jacobite intrigue, deep involvement in two major European wars, Britain's emergence as a great power, a 'financial revolution', greater religious toleration, a riven Church, and a startling growth of parliamentary government. Such changes were only part of the transformation of English society at the time. An enriching torrent of new ideas from the likes of Newton, Defoe, and Addison, spread through newspapers, periodicals, and coffee-houses, provided new views and values that some embraced and others loathed. England's horizons were also growing, especially in the Caribbean and American colonies. For many, however, the benefits were uncertain: the slave trade flourished, inequality widened, and the poor and 'disorderly' were increasingly subject to strictures and statutes. If it was an age of prospects it was also one of anxieties.
Download or read book Democracy at the Opera written by Karen Ahlquist and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Was there opera - and just what was it like - in New York City before the advent of the Metropolitan Opera Company? In exploring these questions, Karen Ahlquist describes the social, cultural, economic, and esthetic factors that led to the assimilation of Italian opera - a complex, expensive genre of elitist reputation - into New York's business oriented community, with its English cultural heritage and sacred republican traditions. In her lively description of opera as few today can imagine it, Ahlquist considers Jacksonian-era efforts to create a polite social setting, the influence of a socially based clash between respectability and broad public access, and the role of music in shaping, not just reflecting, social and cultural life.
Download or read book How Quaint the Ways of Paradox written by Philip H. Dillard and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 1991 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Identifies 968 articles, monographs, and dissertations by and about Gilbert and Sullivan.
