Understanding Italian Opera

Understanding Italian Opera
Author: Tim Carter
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2015-09-16
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0190247959

Opera is often regarded as the pinnacle of high art. A "Western" genre with global reach, it is where music and drama come together in unique ways, supported by stellar singers and spectacular scenic effects. Yet it is also patently absurd -- why should anyone break into song on the dramatic stage? -- and shrouded in mystique. In this engaging and entertaining guide, renowned music scholar Tim Carter unravels its many layers to offer a thorough introduction to Italian opera from the seventeenth to the early twentieth centuries. Eschewing the technical musical detail that all too often dominates writing on opera, Carter begins instead where the composers themselves did: with the text. Walking readers through the relationship between music and poetry that lies at the heart of any opera, Carter then offers explorations of five of the most enduring and emblematic Italian operas: Monteverdi's The Coronation of Poppea; Handel's Julius Caesar in Egypt; Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro; Verdi's Rigoletto; and Puccini's La Bohème. Shedding light on the creative collusions and collisions involved in bringing opera to the stage, the various, and varying, demands of the text and music, and the nature of its musical drama, Carter also shows how Italian opera has developed over the course of music history. Complete with synopses, cast lists, and suggested further reading for each work discussed, Understanding Italian Opera is a must-read for anyone with an interest in and love for this glorious art.

Understanding Italian Opera

Understanding Italian Opera
Author: Tim Carter
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2015
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0190247940

Opera has long fascinated creative artists and audiences alike. It is often regarded as the pinnacle of high art, yet it is also shrouded in mystique. Understanding Italian Opera unravels its many layers by looking closely at five of the most enduring and emblematic Italian operas from Monteverdi to Puccini.

Italian Opera

Italian Opera
Author: David R. B. Kimbell
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 708
Release: 1991
Genre: Music
ISBN: 9780521466431

David Kimbell traces the history of Italian opera from the Renaissance to the early twentieth century.

Divas and Scholars

Divas and Scholars
Author: Philip Gossett
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 699
Release: 2008-09-15
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0226304884

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.

Singers of Italian Opera

Singers of Italian Opera
Author: John Rosselli
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 296
Release: 1995-03-02
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780521426978

Adelina Patti was the most highly regarded singer in history. She earned nearly $5,000 a night and had her own railway carriage. Yet a minor comic singer would perform for the cost of his food and a pair of shoes to wear on stage. John Rosselli's wide-ranging study introduces all those singers, members of the chorus as well as stars, who have sung Italian opera from 1600 to the twentieth century. Singers are shown slowly emancipating themselves from dependence on great patrons and entering the dangerous freedom of the market. Rosselli also examines the sexist prejudices against the castrati of the eighteenth century and against women singers. Securely rooted in painstaking scholarship and sprinkled with amusing anecdote, this is a book to fascinate and inform opera fans at all levels.

Opera and Sovereignty

Opera and Sovereignty
Author: Martha Feldman
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 574
Release: 2010-10-05
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0226044548

Performed throughout Europe during the 1700s, Italian heroic opera, or opera seria, was the century’s most significant musical art form, profoundly engaging such figures as Handel, Haydn, and Mozart. Opera and Sovereignty is the first book to address this genre as cultural history, arguing that eighteenth-century opera seria must be understood in light of the period’s social and political upheavals. Taking an anthropological approach to European music that’s as bold as it is unusual, Martha Feldman traces Italian opera’s shift from a mythical assertion of sovereignty, with its festive forms and rituals, to a dramatic vehicle that increasingly questioned absolute ideals. She situates these transformations against the backdrop of eighteenth-century Italian culture to show how opera seria both reflected and affected the struggles of rulers to maintain sovereignty in the face of a growing public sphere. In so doing, Feldman explains why the form had such great international success and how audience experiences of the period differed from ours today. Ambitiously interdisciplinary, Opera and Sovereignty will appeal not only to scholars of music and anthropology, but also to those interested in theater, dance, and the history of the Enlightenment.

Opera 101

Opera 101
Author: Fred Plotkin
Publisher: Hyperion
Total Pages: 520
Release: 1994-12
Genre: Music
ISBN:

Written by an opera insider and featuring an introduction by Placido Domingo, here is a thorough, friendly, and truly complete guide to learning how to love and appreciate the opera. After a brief history of opera, the book includes a guide to operatic terms, a minute-by-minute listener's guide to 11 central works, a list of recommended books and recordings and much more.

Italian Opera in Global and Transnational Perspective

Italian Opera in Global and Transnational Perspective
Author: Axel Körner
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 341
Release: 2022-03-24
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1108843867

This volume of essays discusses the European and global expansion of Italian opera and the significance of this process for debates on opera at home in Italy. Covering different parts of Europe, the Americas, Southeast and East Asia, it investigates the impact of transnational musical exchanges on notions of national identity associated with the production and reception of Italian opera across the world. As a consequence of these exchanges between composers, impresarios, musicians and audiences, ideas of operatic Italianness (italianit...) constantly changed and had to be reconfigured, reflecting the radically transformative experience of time and space that throughout the nineteenth century turned opera into a global aesthetic commodity. The book opens with a substantial introduction discussing key concepts in cross-disciplinary perspective and concludes with an epilogue relating its findings to different historiographical trends in transnational opera studies.

Understanding Global Cultures

Understanding Global Cultures
Author: Martin J. Gannon
Publisher: SAGE
Total Pages: 657
Release: 2010
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1412957893

"This is a significant book... for a multitude of audiences, including scholars, practitioners, students, expatriates, travelers, and those who are simply interested in culture... This book is also an ideal reference tool, since the metaphors are easy to remember yet rich in contextual value and are presented in a logical structure for quick consultation. Overall, this book is enormously appealing, genuinely useful, and a worthy addition to any collection." -Thunderbird International Business Review (2002) In Understanding Global Cultures, Fourth Edition, authors Martin J. Gannon and Rajnandini Pillai present the cultural metaphor as a method for understanding the cultural mindsets of individual nations, clusters of nations, and even continents. The fully updated Fourth Edition continues to emphasize that metaphors are guidelines to help outsiders quickly understand what members of a culture consider important. This new edition includes a new part structure, three completely new chapters, and major revisions to chapters on American football, Russian ballet, and the Israeli kibbutz. New and Continuing Features: Emphasizes clusters of national cultures and variations within each cluster, as well as both topic-oriented (authority-ranking cultures, market-pricing cultures, etc.) and cluster-focused descriptions Includes three new parts: India, Shiva, and Diversity; Scandinavian Egalitarian Cultures (Sweden, Denmark, and Finland); and Other Egalitarian Cultures (including Canada and Germany) Provides three completely new chapters: Finnish Sauna, Kaleidoscopic India and Diversity, and a final integrative summary chapter Integrates chapters through the frameworks of the GLOBE study, the Hofstede study, Hall, and Kluckholn and Strodbeck Highlights religious and ethnic diversity throughout Ancillaries Instructor Resources are available on a password-protected website at www.sagepub.com/gannon4instr. These include applications, discussion questions, model examinations,100 exercises, and suggested syllabi. Qualified instructors may contact Customer Care to receive access to the site. Understanding Global Cultures: Metaphorical Journeys Through 29 Nations, Clusters of Nations, Continents, and Diversity is appropriate for courses in International Business and Management, Strategic Management and Planning, and Cultural Studies.

Understanding Global Cultures: Metaphorical Journeys Through 31 Nations, Clusters of Nations, Continents, and Diversity

Understanding Global Cultures: Metaphorical Journeys Through 31 Nations, Clusters of Nations, Continents, and Diversity
Author: Martin J. Gannon
Publisher: SAGE
Total Pages: 681
Release: 2013
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1412995930

In Understanding Global Cultures, Fifth Edition, authors Martin J. Gannon and Rajnandini Pillai present the cultural metaphor—any activity, phenomenon, or institution with which the members of a given culture identify emotionally or cognitively—as a method for understanding the cultural mindsets of individual nations, clusters of nations, and even continents. The book shows how metaphors are guidelines to help outsiders quickly understand what members of a culture consider important. The fully updated Fifth Edition includes 31 nation-specific chapters, including a new Part XI on popular music as cultural metaphors, two completely new chapters on Vietnam and Argentina, revisions to all retained chapters, and a more explicit linkage between each cultural metaphor and current economic and business developments in each nation.