| Description |
xii, 376 p., [8] p. of plates : ill. (some col.), music ; 23 cm. |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (p. [369]-370) and index. |
| Contents |
The evolution of comic opera. Mozart the serious comic : Don Giovanni ; Rossini's La Cenerentola : the renewal of comic opera ; Verdi's Falstaff : the final frontier -- Bel canto and beyond. Rossini's Semiramide : the rebirth of Italian opera seria ; Bellini's I puritani : hybrid opera ; Verdi's Nabucco : the beginning of the end -- Italian opera in revolution. Verdi's Rigoletto : new directions in Italian opera -- Opera as autobiography. Beethoven's Fidelio : a case of self-salvation ; Berlioz's La damnation de Faust : when is opera not opera? -- Shakespearean opera. Gounod's Romeo et Juliette : rewriting Shakespeare ; Verdi's Otello : adaptation and form in late-nineteenth-century opera -- From literature to opera. Gounod's Faust : a hero's transformation ; Massenet vs. Puccini : two (of the three) Manons -- Symphonic opera. Wagner, Strauss, and the question of operatic form -- French grand opera. Verdi's Don Carlos : a foreigner's view ; Berlioz's Les Troyens : a misjudged masterpiece -- Verismo opera. Bizet's Carmen : a sociological interpretation ; Puccini's Tosca : the not-so-"shabby little shocker" -- Fairy-tale opera. Puccini's Turandot : the (un)solved riddle -- The influence of Wagner. Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande : the exorcism of Wagner -- Approaches to twentieth-century opera. Looking ahead while looking back : Bartok, Berg, and Britten. |
| Summary |
Evenings at the Opera: An Exploration of the Basic Repertoire is a collection of essays based on Jeffery Langford's lectures at the Manhattan School of Music and inspired by his pre-performance talks at the Metropolitan Opera Guild. It presents a unique view of the stylistic development of nearly 200 years of opera history (from Mozart to Britten), with special attention to the question of how the genre's competing components of action, music, and text combine to make effective music drama. Taking a thematic (rather than a purely historical) approach to this exploration of selected works from the standard repertoire, Langford engages the reader in the fundamental question of how the shifting aesthetics of opera from one composer to another, one country to another, and one era to another have resulted in vastly different solutions to the problem of how to make a dramma per musica (drama in music), as the Italian inventors of opera first called it. Going beyond mere plot synopsis, he guides the reader through analysis of specific issues of musical form, style, and technique to shed new light on the perennial question of "how opera (sometimes) works."--Publisher description. |
| Subject |
Operas -- Analysis, appreciation.
|
| ISBN |
9781574671872 |
|
1574671871 |
| Standard No. |
40019295819 |
|
