Music-Genres & Styles-Opera

An Economist Best Book of 2007, Jonathan Carr's The Wagner Clan proves, with the sweeping scope of a Wagnerian opera, that the history of Europe and that of the infamous composer's family are inextricably intertwined. Carr presents not only Richard Wagner himself-- musician, philosopher,...

Brecht's operatic play produced with Hauptmann, Neher and Weill was first staged in 1930. The story is that three criminals create the city of Mahagonny. Drinking, gambling, prize-fights and similar activities are the sole occupation of the inhabitants, and money rules. Mahagonny is threatened...

Author: Aleksei KruchenykhISBN-10: 069230231XISBN-13: 9780692302316Publisher: Cervena Barva PressLanguage: EnglishPublished: 09/29/2014Pages: 56Format: PaperbackWeight: 0.21lbsSize: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.13d

Leontyne Price: Highlights of a Prima Donna is a collector's item. It was published in 1973 and covers some of the most essential years of her life and career. It has circulated extensively via libraries and has been cited in a variety of magazine...

Reflecting a wide variety of approaches to eighteenth-century opera, this Companion brings together leading international experts in the field to provide a valuable reference source. Viewing opera as a complex and fascinating form of art and social ritual, rather than reducing it simply to...

This book is a study of Mozart's Don Giovanni, his second opera to a libretto by da Ponte. Although it is one of the handful of best-known and most often performed operas of the last two hundred years, Don Giovanni is seldom given in...

This edited volume brings together academic specialists writing on the multi-media operatic form from a range of disciplines: comparative literature, history, sociology, and philosophy. The presence in the volume's title of Pierre Bourdieu, the leading cultural sociologist of the late twentieth century, signals the...

A detailed investigation of the reception and cultural contexts of Puccini's music, this book offers a fresh view of this historically important but frequently overlooked composer. Wilson's study explores the ways in which Puccini's music and persona were held up as both the antidote...

The name Giuseppe Verdi conjures images of Italians singing opera in the streets and bursting into song at political protests or when facing the firing squad. While many of the accompanying stories were exaggerated, or even invented, by later generations, Verdi's operas--along with those...

Beginning with the simple question, "Why did audiences grow silent?" Listening in Paris gives a spectator's-eye view of opera and concert life from the Old Regime to the Romantic era, describing the transformation in musical experience from social event to profound aesthetic encounter. James...

An instant and overwhelming success upon its first performance in 1893, H舅sel and Gretel has captivated audiences of all ages ever since. Engelbert Humperdinck combined the simplicity of German folk tunes with the sophistication of Wagnerian technique in a fairy-tale opera, based on the...

"He [Wagner] has been much criticized for this strongly personal statement of a religious subject, which mingles the concepts of sacred and profane love; but in the light of modern knowledge, his insight into the relationship between religious and sexual experience can only seem...

In America today, opera has never been more popular, and one reason for this is, no doubt, that American opera singers are fixtures on every leading opera stage throughout the world. In this lively and engrossing account, Peter G. Davis, music critic for New...

John Cage is best known for his indeterminate music, which leaves a significant level of creative decision-making in the hands of the performer. But how much licence did Cage allow? Martin Iddon's book is the first volume to collect the complete extant correspondence between...

OPERA IN PARIS 1800 - 1850 A LIVELY HISTORYAuthor: Patrick BarbierISBN-10: 0931340837ISBN-13: 9780931340833Publisher: AmadeusLanguage: EnglishPublished: 04/01/2003Pages: 250Format: HardcoverWeight: 1.38lbsSize: 9.38h x 6.41w x 0.96dReview Citation(s): Kirkus Reviews 03/15/1995 pg. 351

Distinguished Metropolitan Opera basso Jerome Hines provides a wealth of information and advice for all those who have embarked on or plan to embark upon a serious singing career. From basic information on how the head and body combine to produce vocal sound, he...

Blessed with one of the great tenor voices of all time, Mario Lanza (1921-1959) rose to spectacular heights in a film, recording, and concert career that spanned little more than a decade. Groomed at the outset for a career on the opera stage, Lanza...

This book demonstrates for the first time that Mozart's opera Die Zauberfle is an enactment of the alchemical opus magnum, in the form of a chemical wedding, using Paracelsus's tria principia doctrine that was strongly prevalent among Freemasons towards the end of the 18th...

(Vocal Score). Based on the critical edition. Includes historical notes, an overview on the sources, and critical commentary.Author: Gaetano DonizettiISBN-10: 8875928673ISBN-13: 9788875928674Publisher: RicordiLanguage: EnglishPublished: 11/01/2009Pages: 596Format: PaperbackWeight: 3.30lbsSize: 10.50h x 7.70w x 1.40d

A superb new translation of one of the greatest nineteenth century poems: the libretto to Wagner's Ring Cycle, in a Penguin Classics hardcover designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith The scale and grandeur of Wagner's The Ring of the Nibelung has no precedent and no successor....

What is it about musical theatre that audiences find entertaining? What are the features that lead to its ability to stimulate emotional attachment, to move and to give pleasure? Beginning from the passion musical theatre performances arouse and their ubiquity in London's West End...

Opera Acts explores a wealth of new historical material about singers in the late nineteenth century and challenges the idea that this was a period of decline for the opera singer. In detailed case studies of four figures - the late Verdi baritone Victor...

Richard Strauss' fifteen operas, which span the years 1893 to 1941, make up the largest German operatic legacy since Wagner's operas of the nineteenth century. Many of Strauss's works were based on texts by Europe's finest writers: Oscar Wilde, Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Stefan...

The first major study of Saint-Sa?s's stage music, timed to coincide with revivals of his operas on stage.Author: Hugh MacDonaldISBN-10: 1108445098ISBN-13: 9781108445092Publisher: Cambridge University PressLanguage: EnglishPublished: 09/02/2021Pages: 448Format: PaperbackWeight: 1.57lbsSize: 9.61h x 6.69w x 0.91d

Ernest Newman's four-volume Life of Wagner, originally published between 1933 and 1947, remains a classic work of biography. The culmination of forty years' research on the composer and his works (Newman's first Study of Wagner was first published in 1899), these books present a...

Mozart's greatest works were written in Vienna in the decade before his death (1781-1791). This biography focuses on Mozart's dual roles as a performer and composer and reveals how his compositional processes are affected by performance-related concerns. It traces consistencies and changes in Mozart's...

"The Mozart Anthology" is a celebration of Mozart's music, offering five arrangements, fantasies, and showpieces as performed by the Anderson & Roe Piano Duo. Each work translates the spirit of Mozart's original vision to the keyboard in a highly pianistic manner, making attractive additions...

Author: Kim Jong IlISBN-10: 0898752035ISBN-13: 9780898752038Publisher: University Press of the PacificLanguage: EnglishPublished: 01/01/2001Pages: 188Format: PaperbackWeight: 0.47lbsSize: 8.22h x 5.00w x 0.47d

Long before Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation, long before Barthes explicated his empire of signs, even before Puccini's Madame Butterfly, Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikadopresented its own distinctive version of Japan. Set in a fictional town called Titipu and populated by characters named Yum-Yum,...

This work recreates the social, political, architectural, and performance histories of each Italian opera house by including eyewitness accounts from Italian newspapers, journals, and books of the time. It covers more than 50 Italian opera houses and festivals, organized by their city of origin...

In this captivating work, Carmen Trammell Skaggs examines the discourse of opera -- both the art form and the social institution -- in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American literature. Through the lens of opera, she maintains, major American writers -- including Walt Whitman, Edgar...

Opera and Ideas is a study of the connections between music and intellectual history. Through lucid analysis of six operas and two song cycles, Paul Robinson shows how operas give musical and dramatic expression to ideas about the self, society, and history.Author: Paul A....

Author: Richard WagnerISBN-10: 0793553717ISBN-13: 9780793553716Publisher: G. Schirmer, Inc.Language: EnglishPublished: 11/01/1986Pages: 52Format: PaperbackWeight: 0.28lbsSize: 10.36h x 6.70w x 0.14d

While no one would dispute Wagner's ranking among the most significant composers in the history of Western music, his works have been more fiercely attacked than those of any other composer. Alleged to be an unscrupulous womanizer and megalomaniac, undeniably a racist, Wagner's personal...

In this classic guide, the foremost Wagner expert of our century discusses ten of Wagner's most beloved operas, illuminates their key themes and the myths and literary sources behind the librettos, and demonstrates how the composer's style changed from work to work. Acclaimed as...

For anyone who has been intimidated, overwhelmed, or just plain confused by what they think opera is, Who's Afraid of Opera? offers a guide to what author Michael Walsh describes as "the greatest art form yet invented by humankind." Curtain up! It's time to...

"Opera completa per canto e pianoforte"--Cover.Author: Giuseppe VerdiISBN-10: 063407122XISBN-13: 9780634071225Publisher: RicordiLanguage: EnglishPublished: 11/01/2000Pages: 328Format: PaperbackWeight: 1.80lbsSize: 10.50h x 7.90w x 0.80d

Leontyne Price: Highlights of a Prima Donna is a collector's item. It was published in 1973 and covers some of the most essential years of her life and career. It has circulated extensively via libraries and has been cited in a variety of magazine...

Celebrating the extraordinary diversity of operatic achievements in the twentieth century, this Companion brings together the work of scholars from both sides of the Atlantic. Beginning with a survey of operatic legacies, the volume analyzes regional styles and aesthetic trends, and features essays on...

Richard Strauss is a composer much loved among audiences throughout the world, both in the opera house and the concert hall. Despite this popularity, Strauss was for many years ignored by scholars, who considered his commercial success and his continued reliance on the tonal...

France has a long and rich music history that has had a far-reaching impact upon music and cultures around the world. This accessible Companion provides a comprehensive introduction to the music of France. With chapters on a range of music genres, internationally renowned authors...

Claudio Monteverdi is one of the most important figures of 'early' music, a composer whose music speaks powerfully and directly to modern audiences. This book, first published in 2007, provides an authoritative treatment of Monteverdi and his music, complementing Paolo Fabbri's standard biography of...

A team of scholars and writers examines important Romantic operas and traces the origins and development of a style created during an increasingly technical age. The volume analyzes grand operas by Rossini, Auber, Meyerbeer and Hal vy and discusses grand opera in Russia and...

Richard Wagner is remembered as one of the most influential figures in music and theatre, but his place in history has been marked by a considerable amount of controversy. His attitudes towards the Jews and the appropriation of his operas by the Nazis, for...

Providing biographical, theatrical, and social-cultural background for Verdi's operas, this Companion examines important general aspects of their style and method of composition. Verdi's milieu, creative process, and critical reception are subsequently explored in essays by specialists who critically appraise his accomplishments.Author: Scott L. BalthazarISBN-10:...

Idomeneo, by common consent Mozart's greatest opera seria, is a rich synthesis of the dramatic potentialities of Italian opera seria, French trag die lyrique, and recent German opera. It was composed for the finest orchestra in Germany and some excellent singers. Mozart's relish of...

Wagner's Tristan und Isolde occupies a singular position in the history of Western culture. What Nietzsche called the 'sweet and terrible infinity' of its basic nexus of longing and death has fascinated audiences since its first performance in 1865. At the same time, its...

In this book Lucy Beckett gives a comprehensive account of Wagner's last and strangest opera. The literary sources of this work, its many links with Wagner's life and thought, its libretto, music and stage history, are all thoroughly examined. There is a full commentary,...

Peking opera is one of the most distinctive traditions in Chinese culture - a tradition that can seem mysterious and complex to foreign eyes. In this illustrated introduction, Xu Chengbei explains the colorful make up, intricate costumes, characters, staging, stories and music associated with...

Best remembered for such light-hearted works as Il barbiere di Siviglia, Gioachino Rossini produced a sequence of large-scale serious French operas after his move to Paris in 1824 which overwhelmed audiences with their musical power, and responded to the French Restoration. Rather than presenting...