Opera Books

Book Synopsisexamines the influence of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony on two major nineteenth-century composers, Richard Wagner and Robert Schumann. During 1845 46 the compositional styles of Schumann and Wagner changed in a common direction, toward a style that was more contrapuntal, more densely motivic, and engaged in processes of thematic transformation.Trade Review"Wagner, Schumann, and the Lessons of Beethoven's Ninth is a fascinating new examination... It is as though a careful magnifying glass were held to past interactions between two very different composers..." -- Nancy Lorraine The Midwest Book Review "This is a multilayered book. It is on one level a formidable piece of forensic musical detective work displaying detailed critical understanding of the works in question through identification of influences and tracing of possible thematic cross-references across generic boundaries; on another it is a musically highly intelligent study of interactive compositional processes in the different but related guises of operatic and instrumental music." Music & LettersTable of ContentsPreface Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Wagner's Faustian Understanding of Beethoven's Ninth 2. The Impact of the Ninth on The Flying Dutchman 3. Wagner, Thematic Dispersion, and Contrary Motion 4. Schumann, Thematic Dispersion, and Contrary Motion 5. Late Schumann, Wagner, and Bach 6. Brahms's Triple Response to the Ninth 7. Wagner and Schumann Appendix 1: Citations of Wagner's Possible Allusions and Influences in The Flying Dutchman Appendix 2: Contrary Motion Counterpoint in the First Movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony Appendix 3: Contrary Motion Counterpoint in The Flying Dutchman Appendix 4: Contrary Motion Counterpoint in the Fourth Movement of Schumann's Second Symphony Appendix 5: Contrary Motion Counterpoint in the First Movement of Brahms's First Symphony Abbreviations Notes Works Cited Index

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Book SynopsisHow did voice become a metaphor for selfhood in the Western imagination? The Lyric Myth of Voice situates the emergence of an ideological connection between voice and subjectivity in late eighteenth-century Italy, where long-standing political anxieties and new notions of cultural enlightenment collided in the mythical figure of the lyric poet-singer. Ultimately, music and literature together shaped the singing voice into a tool for civilizing modern Italian subjects. Drawing on a range of approaches and frameworks from historical musicology to gender studies, disability studies, anthropology, and literary theory, Jessica Gabriel Peritz shows how this ancient yet modern myth of voice attained interpretable form, flesh, and sound. The publisher gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the AMS 75 PAYS Fund of the American Musicological Society, supported in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.Table of ContentsContents List of Illustrations and Tables Editorial Principles Introduction 1 • The Poet Sings 2 • The Orfeo Act 3 • Civilizing Song 4 • Domesticating the Tenth Muse 5 • Sublime Suffering and the Good Mother Epilogue Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisIs The Marriage of Figaro just about Figaro? Is Don Giovanni's story the only oneor even the most interesting onein the opera that bears his name? For generations of critics, historians, and directors, it's Mozart's men who have mattered most. Too often, the female characters have been understood from the male protagonist's point of view or simply reduced on stage (and in print) to paper cutouts from the age of the powdered wig and the tightly cinched corset. It's time to give Mozart's womenand Mozart's multi-dimensional portrayals of feminine charactertheir due. In this lively book, Kristi Brown-Montesano offers a detailed exploration of the female roles in Mozart's four most frequently performed operas, Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte, and Die Zauberflöte. Each chapter takes a close look at the music, libretto text, literary sources, and historical factors that give shape to a character, re-evaluating common assumptions and proposing fresh interpretations. Brown-Montesano views each character as the subject of a story, not merely the object of a hero's narrative or the stock figure of convention. From amiable Zerlina, to the awesome Queen of the Night, to calculating Despina, all of Mozart's women have something unique to say. These readings also tackle provocative social, political, and cultural issues, which are used in the operas to define positive and negative images of femininity: revenge, power, seduction, resistance, autonomy, sacrifice, faithfulness, class, maternity, and sisterhood. Keenly aware of the historical gap between the origins of these works and contemporary culture, Brown-Montesano discusses how attitudes about such conceptspast and currentinfluence our appreciation of these fascinating representations of women.Trade Review“An interesting, unique, well-written study.” * CHOICE *“Brown-Montesano has set out to write something that will be of value to directors and singers in search of a character and general opera lovers who simply want to understand more about Mozart. This lively, perceptive study succeeds brilliantly on all counts.” * Classical Music Magazine *Table of ContentsContentsAcknowledgmentsOvertureAct One: (Anti-)Heroines and Women on the Edge1. Feminine Vengeance I: The Assailed/AssailantDonna Anna2. Sisterhood and Seduction I: Abandonment and RescueDonna Elvira3. Class SurvivalZerlina4. Feminine Vengeance II: (Over)Powered PoliticsThe Queen of the Night5. Good Daughter, Good WifePamina6. Woman’s Identity I: Sacred and ProfaneThe Three Ladies and PapagenaAct Two: Sisterly Alliances and Sisters Subverted7. Sisterhood and Seduction II: Friendship and ClassCountess Almaviva and Susanna8. Woman’s Identity II: Loss and LegitimacyMarcellina and Barbarina9. Sisterhood and Seduction III: Intimacy and InfluenceFiordiligi and Dorabella10. Survival ClassDespinaNotesWorks CitedIndex

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Book SynopsisRepublic of Images traces the evolution of French filmmaking from 1895the year of the debut of the Cinematographe in Paristo the present day. Alan Williams offers a unique synthesis of history, biography, aesthetics and film theory. He captures the formal and stylistic developments of film in France over nearly one hundred years.Trade ReviewThe history of French cinema is the history of cinema. -- Nestor AlmendrosTable of ContentsA Note on Film Titles and Dates Introduction Part I: French Cinema Dominates the World Market 1. The Cinema Before Cinema 2. An Industry Begins 3. Growth and Diversification Part II: The Golden Age of the Silent Film 4. Decline and Mutation 5. The Mental and the Physical 6. The Commercial and the Esoteric Part III: The Golden Age of the Sound Cinema 7. An Unexpected Upheaval 8. Art and Entertainment in the Sound Film 9. Politics, Poetics, and the Cinema Part IV: A New Kind of Cinema 10. War and Occupation 11. Liberation-Change and Continuity 12. An Alternative Film Culture Part V: The Nouvelle Vague and After 13. Fourth Wave 14. Filmmaking at the Margins 15. Winds of Change Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisOne of the foremost composers of the French Baroque operatic tradition, Rameau is often cited for his struggle to steer lyric tragedy away from its strict Lullian form, inspired by spoken tragedy, and toward a more expressive musical style. In this fresh exploration of Rameau's compositional aesthetic, Charles Dill depicts a much more complicated fTable of ContentsPreface ix Abbreviations xvii Chapter 1. Monstrous Opera 3 Chapter 2. Different Tragedies 31 Chapter 3. Rameau's Twins 57 Chapter 4. Rameau Mise-en-Scene 106 Chapter 5. In the Mirror 135 Notes 153 Sources Cited 183 Index 195

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Book SynopsisTrade Review[A] vast amount of research […] has gone into this project. […] Didier makes the reader constantly aware of the historical, social, aesthetic, theoretical, philosophical, psychological complexities involved ; this work is a much richer tapestry than a review can convey. Her well-shaped, elegantly written study is an excellent contribution to our knowledge and understanding of eighteenth-century French culture.- NZ Journal of French StudiesToujours éclairant […], l’ouvrage de Béatrice Didier rend hommage à certains écrivains et théoriciens majeurs (Metastasio, Fontenelle, Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau), loue le génie de Quinault, brillant partenaire de Lully, et n’oublie pas de remettre en lumière Cahusac et Fuzelier, collaborateurs trop souvent décriés de Rameau. Fruit d’un long travail, s’il est d’abord une source inépuisable d’informations, il donne surtout matière à réflexion, et son intérêt est indéniable [… et] son sujet très pointu.- Opéra MagazineTable of ContentsAvant-proposIntroduction. Le livret d’opéra: un genre décrié et fécondI Les librettistes1. Situations et contingences2. Nostalgies de grandeur3. Quatre écrivains librettistesII Les livrets et leurs formes4. Justifications 5. Les genres lyriques6. Langages et mise en scèneIII Vers le mythe 7. Les portes du merveilleux8. Les livrets des opéras de Rameau et le mythe9. Le premier romantismeConclusion. Le livret, prodigieux réservoir de mythesRépertoire des librettistes (fin XVIIe-début XIXe) BibliographieIndex

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Book SynopsisHow well do you think you know your opera? Match wits with Metropolitan Opera quiz master Father Owen Lee in forty-five opera-related puzzles, including straight-forward quizzes, anagrams, vertical patterns, crostics, and crossword puzzles. Each puzzle has a theme, such as baseball and opera, movies and opera, and operas set in Paris. Forty-three of the puzzles have been collected from Father Lee's column in The Opera Quarterly, along with two new puzzles especially created for this volume.

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Book SynopsisOpera is quin-tessentially an art of love and desire, of loss and suffering, of disease and death. This title offers an understanding of both content and context.Trade Review"A fascinating interdisciplinary study of the interconnected subtexts of erotic attraction, illness, and death in several 19th- and 20th-century operatic texts... This is an extraordinary examination of how opera uses the singing body-gendered and sexual-to give voice to the suffering person. Highly recommended."-Library Journal Library Journal "The authors' argument is rich and complex; it draws on source, text and music; it is also medically sound. Opera is quintessentially an art of love and desire, of loss and suffering, of disease and death. Hutcheon and Hutcheon enrich our understanding of both content and context."-Opera News Opera News "Linda and Michael Hutcheon have done a fine job of pulling together medical and literary sources to make sense of the changing depiction of disease in opera... For opera lovers and for anyone interested in seeing good, synthetic reasoning at work, this is a fine study."-Publishers Weekly Publishers Weekly

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Book SynopsisWith Richard Wagner, opera reached the apex of German Romanticism. Originally published in 1851, when Wagner was in political exile, this work outlines a revolutionary type of musical stage work, which would finally materialize as "The Ring of the Nibelung".

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Book SynopsisThis text presents a series of essays on opera by a number of contemporary European and American literary and cultural theorists. They offer a variety of contemporary critical approaches ranging from the Frankfurt School through Lacanian psychoanalysis and post-structuralism to discourse analysis.Table of ContentsContents LEVIN DAVID J. STAROBINSKI JEAN ADORNO THEODOR W. LACOUE-LABARTHE PHILIPPE KAMUF PEGGY WEBER SAMUEL THEWELEIT KLAUS ZIZEK SLAVOJ KITTLER FRIEDRICH

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Book SynopsisOpera and the City analyzes court-city (and state-society) tensions surrounding gender, class, and ethnicity during the Qing dynasty through the prism of opera performance in the capital city of Beijing.Trade Review"Raising provocative arguments for discussion is one of the most important things an historical monograph can do, and when, as in Goldman's book, it is combined with deep erudition and empirical richness, it is an occasion to celebrate. Opera and the City is truly a work that not only scholars of Chinese literature but those of late imperial urban society and culture will certainly want to read." -- William T. Rowe * Frontiers of History in China *"Goldman offers a lively, stimulating account of the complex interaction between opera and urban culture in China between 1770 and 1900. This period tends to be underrepresented in scholarship, due to the difficulty of positioning what was innovative and socially challenging within the traditions of Qing society, but the author approaches these issues with wit and precision, and expertly reveals to the reader the colorful world of 19th-century Beijing . . . Highly recommended." -- S. Yoon * CHOICE *"This thoroughly researched and erudite study turns the history of Chinese opera, often treated elsewhere as an esoteric subject, into a key venue for broad social and cultural inquiry into the evolution of Chinese urban politics and culture in the second half of the Qing era . . . This book's major strengths are Andrea Goldman's highly original interpretive vision and her extensive primary-text scholarship . . . This volume is an important addition to the scholarship on late imperial Beijing society, politics, and culture . . . Goldman's study opens up a refreshing vista on late imperial Chinese artistic and cultural life and its social meanings and politics, pushing us toward a horizon of understanding this history through new perspectives and in unexpected locations." -- John Kong-cheong Leung * The Historian *"Opera and the City is an extremely well-researched and well-argued monograph on the development of commercial theatre in Beijing from the heyday of the Manchu Qing dynasty in the middle of the eighteenth century to the eve of the dynasty's collapse in 1911." -- Wilt L. Idema * Journal of Chinese Studies *"Goldman's study of Peking opera is thorough, convincing, and fascinating. It will be required reading for scholars of Chinese theater, late imperial culture, Qing history, and gender studies. The scholarship is as good as it gets." -- Catherine Swatek * University of British Columbia *"Like a rewarding afternoon at the theater in Qing Beijing, Opera and the City is a lively, sexy, and artistically accomplished performance. Andrea S. Goldman's erudition and passion for theater animate her important study of the gender, class, and Court politics of Qing commercial theater. A must-read for anyone interested in late imperial China." -- Peter J. Carroll * Northwestern University *"Andrea S. Goldman has written a thoughtful study of the cultural and political context of operatic production, performance, and consumption in Beijing from the late eighteenth to the end of the nineteenth century. Thoroughly researched, theoretically innovative, and engagingly written, this work is both a pleasure to read and a substantial contribution to our understanding of how the urban milieu of the late imperial capital city influenced and was influenced by the political dynamics of China's administrative center . . . [Opera in the City is] a truly impressive piece of scholarship that should be considered essential reading for all those interested in Chinese opera, Qing urban history, cultural history, Beijing history, and the intersection of politics and culture in the late-imperial period." -- Richard Belsky * American Historical Review *"Tightly anchored on historical and literary sources, and informed by gender and cultural studies, Goldman's erudite social history of opera takes us on an exciting walk in the capital city, from the height of the empire to the foreign occupation in 1900 that disrupted the state the society, and the practice of opera. Augmented by fascinating illustrations, the text unravels the evolving opera culture as it tracks turning points where politics, society, and war shaped the urbanite community of a million people." -- Jennifer W. Jay * Histoire sociale / Social History *

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Book SynopsisDiligently transcribed and annotated by Michael Burden, Anton Reiff's diary presents an extraordinarily rare view of life with a foreign opera company as it traveled across America by river and rail.

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThis study’s scope is impressive and engaging and opens a window not only on the genesis and development of the opera from a variety of standpoints but also on the politics of producing such a potentially ‘controversial’ piece on black history and black life in the United States. It is at once eclectic and single-minded, and offers insight not only into the underpinnings of Margaret Garner but also into the sociocultural impact of high art.–Justine Tally, Universidad de La Laguna (Spain), author of Toni Morrison's ""Beloved"": Origins

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Book SynopsisIn Sensing Sound Nina Sun Eidsheim offers a vibrational theory of music that radically re-envisions how we think about sound, music, and listening. Eidsheim shows how sound, music, and listening are dynamic and contextually dependent, rather than being fixed, knowable, and constant. She uses twenty-first-century operas by Juliana Snapper, Meredith Monk, Christopher Cerrone, and Alba Triana as case studies to challenge common assumptions about sound—such as air being the default medium through which it travels—and to demonstrate the importance a performance''s location and reception play in its contingency. By theorizing the voice as an object of knowledge and rejecting the notion of an a priori definition of sound, Eidsheim releases the voice from a constraining set of fixed concepts and meanings. In Eidsheim''s theory, music consists of aural, tactile, spatial, physical, material, and vibrational sensations. This expanded definition of music as manifested throuTrade Review"Even if we consider 'the voice' as a sound source, in an average personal imaginary ‘sound’ is something external, while 'the voice' is something internal and intimate. If we add to that the extreme power of language, it’s even harder to treat the voice as 'sound.' Eidsheim explores these contradictions in her book with knowledge and vision. Her theory of sound as a 'universal connection of entities,' for example, is simply enrapturing...." -- Aurelio Cianciotta * Neural *"Eidsheim’s formulation of music as vibrational practice engenders new ways of considering communication between singer and audience, environment and body, and animate and inanimate materials. ... Her work generates wide-ranging and pragmatic resonances for those interested in questions surrounding sound and multi-sensory experience." -- Amy Skjerseth * Theatre Research International *"[Eidsheim's] book invites readers to remember that music itself is a complex phenomenon better understood as an experience and practice of 'intermaterial vibration.'" -- Cecilia Livingston * Cambridge Opera Journal *“Sensing Sound is a captivating and rewarding book. Eidsheim’s ‘vibrational practice’ provides a liberating take on vocal sound, and one that can be applied not only to singing and listening, but to many dimensions of sensory experience.” -- Rebecca Lentjes * Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies *“No doubt [Sensing Sound] will become required reading in many academic disciplines that touch on voice studies.” -- Marit MacArthur * Yale Review *“Sensing Sound delivers a provocative theory of musical sonority—one that interrogates the participatory, material, and ex­periential dimensions of music-making in new and exciting ways. . . . Sensing Sound is sure to enliven music and sound studies research for years to come.” -- Daniel Akira Stadnicki * Intersections *“Eidsheim’s book is sensitive to bodies, attentive to physics, and mindful of encultured practices of listening and sounding. It is a much-needed meeting point for musicology, sound studies, philosophy of sound, performance studies, vocal pedagogy, and those interested in theorizing difference in music.” -- Lucie Vágnerová * Current Musicology *Table of ContentsIllustrations viii Acknowledgments xi Introduction 1 1. Music's Material Dependency: What Underwater Opera Can Tell Us about Odysseus's Ears 27 2. The Acoustic Mediation of Voice, Self, and Others 58 3. Music as Action: Singing Happens before Sound 95 4. All Voice, All Ears: From the Figure of Sound to the Practice of Music 132 5. Music as a Vibrational Practice: Singing and Listening as Everything and Nothing 154 Notes 187 Bibliography 241 Index 261

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Book SynopsisHistoric accounts and new material illuminate the creation, early history and artistic intentions of Britten's first opera.The premiere of Peter Grimes on 7 June 1945 announced the emergence of the first great composer of opera in English since Purcell. Surviving documents offer evidence of the complex interaction of differing ideas about the possible shape and content of the new work, most notably the composition draft, which these essays are particularly concerned to illuminate. They juxtapose historic material with fresh studies: three items written by members of theteam involved in the 1945 production are set alongside specially-commissioned articles, with the three-fold intention of presenting the views of some of the creators of the opera, outlining the work's early history, and offeringcontemporary perspectives on its historical context and its message.Professor PAUL BANKS is Research Development Fellow at the Royal College of Music.Contributors: PAUL BANKS, PHILIP BRETT, BENJAMIN BRITTEN, ERIC CROZIER, DONALDMITCHELL, PETER PEARS, PHILIP REED, ROSAMUND STRODE. Packed away in its pages is a very large amount of new information. TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT A fitting tribute to the opera's enduring international stature, and undoubtedly [a] significant achievement in Britten studies. MUSIC AND LETTERSTrade ReviewPacked away in its pages is a very large amount of new information. TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT A fitting tribute to the opera's enduring international stature, and undoubtedly [a] significant achievement in Britten studies. * MUSIC AND LETTERS *Table of ContentsPreface - Paul Banks Peter Grimes (1965) - Eric Crozier

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Book SynopsisFocuses on Chicago's love affair with opera. With hundred illustrations, this book offers an overview, which is supplemented with a complete list of all the professional opera performances in Chicago, from 1850 to 2005. It is suitable for people interested in music - especially opera - and the history of Chicago.Trade ReviewFact-packed, lively.... 150 Years of Opera in Chicago radiates the affectionate and comprehensive knowledge of [Marsh and Pellegrini] about the most glamorous and expensive of the performing arts. * Illinois Heritage *A fine book. With the unusual stylishness of the writing and its fascinating subject... every line that you read demands that you keep going, and makes you read on and on. * Opera Today *Essential reading. * Chicago Tribune *Table of ContentsTable of Contents Preface Author's Preface Introduction 1 The Roots of a Tradition, 1850–1864 2 The Crosby Years, 1865–1871 3 A Tradition Rebuilt, 1872–1889 4 The Met West, 1884–1910 5 A New Tradition, 1910–1929 6 The Ravinia Opera, 1912–1931 7 A New Theater, 1929–1947 8 New York Takes Over, 1943–1954 9 The Lyric Theater, 1954–1955 10 The Fox Years, 1956–1981 11 The Krainik Years, 1981–1997 12 A New Beginning, 1997–2000 13 A Changing Repertory over the First 150 Years 14 Paying the Bills and Broadening the Audience Appendix A—Overview of Chicago Opera Staging Organizations Appendix B—Annals of Opera in Chicago, 1850–2005 —Index —Annals Notes Selected Bibliography Index Permissions

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Book SynopsisDiscusses social and historical context, stages, stagecraft, and literary art of Yuan drama and presents complete translations of three plays - a bandit adventure, a melodrama, and a murder mystery.

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Book SynopsisOffers a unique perspective in to what it takes to perform Richard Wagner's operas.Performing Wagner studies each of the iconic Wagnerian heldentenor roles from the unique perspective of the performer. Stephen Gould studied and acted them hundreds of times in scores of productions around the world prior to his passing in 2023. In this thoughtful book, he offers insights to building a character, understanding the dramatic arc of each role, analysing each scene for cogency and dramatic structure, and finding the clues embedded in the music and the words. His intelligence and eloquence offer perspectives that only a performer can experience. The book is unique in opera literature. Neither a memoir nor a musical analysis, Performing Wagner is a practical guide to preparing for, and performing, these roles. Stephen Gould hoped to share his experiences with enthusiasts of Wagner's works, as well as opera audiences more generally who seek to learn what singing actors do in performance. It is invaluable to young artists approaching this repertoire and to scholars studying Wagner's dramaturgy. More broadly, this volume speaks to the condition of every opera fan who has ever been floored by a great performance and wondered, 'how did they do that?'A chapter is devoted to each role, and a foreword is provided by Katharina Wagner, the composer's great-granddaughter and Director of the Wagner Festival in Bayreuth, Germany.

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Book SynopsisOpera is community, comfort, art, voice, breath, life. It's hope.All art exists to make life more bearable. For Alison Kinney, it was the wild, fantastical world of opera that transformed her listening and her life. Whether we're listening for the first time or revisiting the arias that first stole our hearts, Avidly Reads Opera welcomes readers and listeners to a community full of friendship, passion, critiqueand, always, beautiful music. In times of delirious, madcap fun and political turmoil, opera fans have expressed their passion by dispatching records into the cosmos, building fairy-tale castles, and singing together through the arduous work of social activism. Avidly Reads Opera is a love letter to the music and those who love it, complete with playlists, a crowdsourced tip sheet from ultra-fans to newbies, and stories of the turbulent, genre-busting, and often hilarious history of opera and its audiences. Across five actsand the requisite intermissionAlison Kinney takes us evTrade ReviewExplaining a musical genre’s appeal for the uninitiated is a tricky feat, but Kinney’s personal approach and passion for her subject distinguish this book from other 'opera 101' attempts. An appealing primer by a fan, for (potential) fans. * Library Journal *When making a solo trip to the opera, almost everyone who wasn't raised on the art faces this question: 'Do I really belong here?' Alison Kinney says 'yes,' and invites you to ride along with her: to performances at Wagner's theater, and also, less conventionally, at a prison. She's insightful and entertaining, but not merely good company. Her larger conversation with the tradition—regarding its pleasures and its problems—should excite anyone eager to see opera with new eyes. * Seth Colter Walls, New York Times contributing music critic *Alison Kinney’s words are like the opinionated arguments you seek out from a friend you trust and respect enough to disagree with—but only occasionally. The energy, care, and excitement are palpable and propel you through this chatty romp through the repertoire. From classic operas to lesser-known and recent works, this book holds opera accountable for its sins while also walking humbly through the halls of a genre that can still say important and trenchant things about social justice today. Kinney shows us that there is a seat for everyone in the opera audience, and welcomes us in. * Naomi André, University of Michigan *

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Book SynopsisOpera is community, comfort, art, voice, breath, life. It's hope.All art exists to make life more bearable. For Alison Kinney, it was the wild, fantastical world of opera that transformed her listening and her life. Whether we're listening for the first time or revisiting the arias that first stole our hearts, Avidly Reads Opera welcomes readers and listeners to a community full of friendship, passion, critiqueand, always, beautiful music. In times of delirious, madcap fun and political turmoil, opera fans have expressed their passion by dispatching records into the cosmos, building fairy-tale castles, and singing together through the arduous work of social activism. Avidly Reads Opera is a love letter to the music and those who love it, complete with playlists, a crowdsourced tip sheet from ultra-fans to newbies, and stories of the turbulent, genre-busting, and often hilarious history of opera and its audiences.Across five actsand the requisitTrade Review"Explaining a musical genre’s appeal for the uninitiated is a tricky feat, but Kinney’s personal approach and passion for her subject distinguish this book from other 'opera 101' attempts. An appealing primer by a fan, for (potential) fans." * Library Journal *"When making a solo trip to the opera, almost everyone who wasn't raised on the art faces this question: 'Do I really belong here?' Alison Kinney says 'yes,' and invites you to ride along with her: to performances at Wagner's theater, and also, less conventionally, at a prison. She's insightful and entertaining, but not merely good company. Her larger conversation with the tradition—regarding its pleasures and its problems—should excite anyone eager to see opera with new eyes." * Seth Colter Walls, New York Times contributing music critic *"Alison Kinney’s words are like the opinionated arguments you seek out from a friend you trust and respect enough to disagree with—but only occasionally. The energy, care, and excitement are palpable and propel you through this chatty romp through the repertoire. From classic operas to lesser-known and recent works, this book holds opera accountable for its sins while also walking humbly through the halls of a genre that can still say important and trenchant things about social justice today. Kinney shows us that there is a seat for everyone in the opera audience, and welcomes us in." * Naomi André, University of Michigan *

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Book SynopsisA beguiling exploration of the last Habsburg monarchs' grip on Europe's historical and cultural imagination. In 1919 the last Habsburg rulers, Emperor Karl and Empress Zita, left Austria, going into exile. That same year, the fairy-tale opera Die Frau ohne Schatten (The Woman Without a Shadow), featuring a mythological emperor and empress, premiered at the Vienna Opera. Viennese poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal and German composer Richard Strauss created Die Frau ohne Schatten through the bitter years of World War I, imagining it would triumphantly appear after the victory of the German and Habsburg empires. Instead, the premiere came in the aftermath of catastrophic defeat. The Shadow of the Empress: Fairy-Tale Opera and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy explores how the changing circumstances of politics and society transformed their opera and its cultural meanings before, during, and after the First World War. Strauss and Hofmannsthal turned emperors and empresses into fantastic fairy-tale characters; meanwhile, following the collapse of the Habsburg monarchy after the war, their real-life counterparts, removed from political life in Europe, began to be regarded as anachronistic, semi-mythological figures. Reflecting on the seismic cultural shifts that rocked post-imperial Europe, Larry Wolff follows the story of Karl and Zita after the loss of their thrones. Karl died in 1922, but Zita lived through the rise of Nazism, World War II, and the Cold War. By her death in 1989, she had herself become a fairy-tale figure, a totem of imperial nostalgia. Wolff weaves together the story of the opera's composition and performance; the end of the Habsburg monarchy; and his own family's life in and exile from Central Europe, providing a rich new understanding of Europe's cataclysmic twentieth century, and our contemporary relationship to it.Trade Review"In Larry Wolff's brilliant telling, an opera's fairy-tale empress and a real-life Habsburg empress come to embody the phantom political culture of an empire that to this day maintains a powerful hold over Central and Eastern European institutions and imagination."—Pieter M. Judson, author of The Habsburg Empire: A New History"This alluring and original work of history explores the parallel lives of a twentieth century opera, the twilight of the Habsburg Empire, and its last emperor and empress. Politics is woven into the opera's creation and its later life. In this brilliant book, art imitates life, and life art, through mirror images, shadows and the unexpected destinies of historic personages."—Leon Botstein, Bard College"Larry Wolff's dual biography of Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal's fictional empress (The Woman without a Shadow, premiered in 1919) and the last Habsburg empress Zita, who lived until 1989, is a silver rose of a book—a brilliant account of an imperfect operatic masterpiece, its allegorical investments, and its call for the repopulation and humanization of Europe in the wake of World War I."—Michael P. Steinberg, author of The Afterlife of MosesTable of ContentsIntroduction: Pulling Roots 1. Giving Language Time 2. The Transported Word: Wheatley's Part 3. Voices of the Ground: Blake's Language in Deep Time 4. Radical Diversions: Wordsworth's Overgrowth 5. The Primitive Today: Thoreau in the Wild Conclusion: Deracination

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Book SynopsisA volume of collected essays which engage Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg from the perspective of both active performers and academics in a wide range of disciplines. Richard Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg has been one of the most performed operas ever since its premiere in 1868. It was adopted as Germany's national opera ("Nationaloper"), not least because of its historical coincidence with the unification of Germany under Bismarck in 1871. The first section of this volume, "Performing Meistersinger," contains three commissioned articles from internationally respected artists - a conductor (Peter Schneider), a stage director (Harry Kupfer) and a singer (Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau), all experienced in the performance of this unusually demanding 5-hour work. The second section, "Meistersinger and History," examines both the representation of German history in the opera and the way the opera has functioned in history through political appropriation and staging practice. The third section, "Representations," is the most eclectic, exploring in the first place the problematic question of genre from the perspective of a theatrical historian. The chronic issue of Wagner's chief opponent, Eduard Hanslick, and his musical and dramatic representation in the opera as Beckmesser, is then addressed, as are gender issues, and Wagner's own utterances concerning the opera. Contributors: Nicholas Vazsonyi, Peter Schneider, Harry Kupfer, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Hans Rudolf Vaget, Lutz Koepnick, David B. Dennis, Klaus Van Den Berg, Thomas S. Grey, Lydia Goehr, Eva Rieger, Peter Höyng. Nicholas Vazsonyi is associate professor of German and comparative literature, University of South Carolina.Trade ReviewIntellectually speaking, this is a delicious tome . . . an indispensable book. Vazsonyi, Rochester University Press, and the individual essayists are to be roundly congratulated on an outstanding contribution to Wagnerian scholarship. WAGNER NOTES, Wagner Society of NY * . *This superb volume of essays . . . [is] the best ever published on 'Die Meistersinger' . . . a book that demands to be read by anyone interested in the politics of opera. -- Barry Millington * BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE *A wonderfully wide-reaching introduction to the extensive field of 'Meistersinger' scholarship. * CHOICE *Nicholas Vazsonyi has organized a collection of new writings whose eleven authors keep the reader up to date with this abundant literature. More than that, the diverse contributors he has chosen complement one another . . . what results is a book that fulfills its underlying interdisciplinary aim. For readers seriously interested in Wagner it will be both instructive and absorbing. * THE OPERA *Nicholas Vazsonyi has assembled a collection of essays that deal with aspects of the opera not necessarily addressed elsewhere, affirming the continuing relevance of the work. This book offers a collection of interdisciplinary studies that should supplement some of the more traditional literature on this seminal work by Wagner. * MONATSHEFTE, 2006 *Table of Contents"Climbing Mount Everest": On Conducting Die Meistersinger - Peter Schneider "We Must Finally Stop Apologizing for Die Meistersinger!": A Conversation with Harry Kupfer - Harry Kupfer Richard Wagner's Cobbler Poet - Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau The Dangers of Satisfaction: On Songs, Rehearsals, and Repetition in Die Meistersinger - Stereoscopic Vision: Sight and Community in Die Meistersinger - Lutz Koepnick "The Most German of All German Operas": Die Meistersinger through the Lens of the Third Reich - David B. Dennis http://worldwidewagner.richard.de: An Interview with the Composer concerning History, Nation, and Die Meistersinger - Peter Höyng Die Meistersinger as Comedy: The Performative and Social Signification of Genre - Klaus van den Berg Masters and Their Critics: Wagner, Hanslick, Beckmesser, and Die Meistersinger - Thomas Grey "Du warst mein Feind von je": The Beckmesser Controversy Revisited - Hans Rudolf Vaget "I Married Eva": Gender Construction and Die Meistersinger - Eva Rieger

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Book SynopsisAn overview of the history of the Prague musical community from 1900 until the end of democracy in 1938, with attention to polemics about "Czechness" and "modernism." This study presents a history and analysis of the Prague musical community from 1900 until the end of democracy in 1938. Opera and Ideology in Prague not only narrates the fascinating history of a local musical community but also reveals much about music and culture in Europe. The fin-de-siècle period was dominated by the musicologist Zdenek Nejedly's polemics regarding the competing "legacies" of Smetana and Dvorák and the merits of modernism.After Czech independence in 1918, a new generation of musicians accepted modernist foreign influences only with extreme hesitation. The 1926 Prague premiere of Berg's opera Wozzeck and the ascendancy of a young groupof avant-garde composers changed the cultural climate entirely, providing new ground for the exploration of jazz, neo-classicism, quarter tones, and socialist music. As the Czechoslovak Republic drew to a close, a resurgence of nationalism appeared in the musical expressions of both Czechs and German-Bohemians. The analyses of operas and tone poems by Novák, Ostrcil, Zich, Jeremiás, Hába, Kricka, and Suk provide a cross-section of musical life in early twentieth-century Prague, as well as a series of interpretations of Czech cultural identity. Populist endeavors such as jazz and neo-classicism represented some of the ways in which composers of the 1930s attempted to regain anaudience alienated by modernism: in this respect, the trends in Prague mirrored those of the rest of Europe. Brian Locke is Assistant Professor of Music History at Western Illinois University, Macomb. He has written extensively on twentieth-century music, including Czech operatic and symphonic works and Alban Berg's Wozzeck.Trade ReviewA most impressive achievement and a major work of scholarship of the period. There is nothing in any language that quite matches its range and depth. -- John Tyrrell * TWENTIETH-CENTURY MUSIC *Meticulously detailed. . . . [Locke shows] where Czech Modernism fits into the European landscape. . . . Besides treating in great detail . . . the main aesthetic and ideological debates of the Prague musical community, Locke provides extensive description and analysis of nine works that played an important role in the formation of Czech Modernism [by Novak, Suk, and others]. -- Harlow Robinson * SLAVIC AND EAST EUROPEAN JOURNAL *This excellent study connects historical opinion with the music and brings us closer to understanding the impact of critical reviews on the development of musical style in east central Europe. , Spring 2008 -- William Smialek * SLAVIC REVIEW *At last we have a book that situates Prague properly at the forefront of the modernist music movement. Through a probing analysis of the heated press debates that occasioned the premieres of greater and lesser Czech operas, Brian Locke demonstrates that Prague, the amorphous capital of an amorphous nation, served as fertile ground for the cultivation of universal -- not provincial -- concepts of musical nationalism. The book greatly refines our understanding of the careers of Smetana, Dvorák, Janácek, and Martinu, while also documenting the astonishing impact of the music critic and politician Zdenek Nejedly on Czech culture. -- -- Simon Morrison, Associate Professor of Music, Princeton UniversityThis is truly a landmark book, filling a gap in our knowledge and understanding of early twentieth-century Czech music and culture, and, in the process, illuminating events in the rest of Europe and in America. The author relates this fascinating account with an engaging style that makes one eager to read on. The music (including a good number of in-depth analyses), the political intrigues, the main characters and events -- all are presented with clarity and style based on solid research. -- -- Timothy Cheek University of Michigan, author of Singing in Czech: A Guide to Czech Lyric Diction and Vocal RepertoireTable of ContentsIntroduction: Nationalism, Modernism, and the Social Responsibility of Art in Prague Smetana, Hostinsky, and the Aesthetic Debates of the Nineteenth Century Legacies, Ideologies, and Responsibilities: The Polemics of the Pre-Independence Years (1900-1918) "Archetypes Who Live, Rejoice, and Suffer": Czech Opera in the Fin de Siecle The Pathology of the New Society: Debates in the Early Years of the First Republic (1918-24) Infinite Melody, Ruthless Polyphone: Czech Modernism in the Early Republic "A Crisis of Modern Music or Audience?" Changing Attitudes to Cultural and Stylistic Pluralism (1925-30) "I Have Rent My Soul in Two": Divergent Directions for Czech Opera in the Late 1920s Heaven on Earth: Socialism, Jazz, and a New Aesthetic Focus (1930-38) "A Sad Optimism, the Happiness of the Resigned": Extremes of Operatic Expression in the 1930s The Ideological Debates of Prague Within a European Context

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Book SynopsisA renowned Verdi authority offers here the often-astounding first history of how Verdi's early operas -- including one of his great masterpieces, Rigoletto -- made their way into America's musical life. The operas of Giuseppe Verdi stand at the center of today's operatic repertoire, and have done so for more than a century. The story of how the reputation and wide appeal of these operas spread from Western Europe throughout the world has long needed to be told. This latest book by noted Verdi authority George W. Martin, Verdi in America: Oberto through Rigoletto, specifically details the changing fortunes of Verdi's early operas in the theaters andconcert halls of the United States. Among the important works whose fates Martin traces are Nabucco, Attila, Ernani, Macbeth (in its original version), Luisa Miller, and one of Verdi's immortal masterpieces: Rigoletto, denounced in 1860 as the epitome of immorality. Martin also explores the astonishing revival of many of these operas in the 1940s and onward (including Macbeth in its revised version of 1865), and the first American productions-sometimes in small opera houses outside the main circuit of some Verdi operas that had never previously managed to cross the Atlantic. Extensive quotations from newspaper reviews testify tothe eventual triumph of these remarkable works. They also reveal the crucial shifts in tastes and expectations that have occurred from Verdi's day to our own. Independent scholar George W. Martin is the author of several books on Italian opera, including Verdi, His Music, Life and Times, Verdi at the Golden Gate: Opera and San Francisco in the Gold Rush Years, and Aspects of Verdi.Trade ReviewMartin's most comprehensive study on this subject to date. It reflects an awareness of how Verdi's reception outside Italy has influenced our understanding of the complex and fascinating legends and legacies surrounding his career. Martin's aim to shed light on the historical context behind the Verdi productions produces some of the most intriguing aspects of the book. -- Chloe Valenti * MUSIC & LETTERS *A tour de force. . . . Succeeds extraordinarily in achieving his stated goals. A vibrant book that is filled with enough detailed information on Verdi's operas to satisfy a researcher's needs, but is also readily accessible to the general operagoer. -- John Graziano * JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY FOR AMERICAN MUSIC *A unique panorama of Verdi's early operas and American operatic practice, past and present. . . . Martin's discussions of each opera illuminate historical trends that are often overlooked. . . . Perhaps most valuable are Martin's discussions of . . . a network of smaller companies, venues, and concert series that are rarely, if ever examined. . . . Methodologically unique, illuminating for the first time the transformation of operatic practice (in America) from the mid-nineteenth century through the current day. . . . A student of American opera, American musical institutions, and Giuseppe Verdi should consider George W. Martin's book required reading, and its dual functionality as both a reference book and monograph makes it a particularly useful addition to the library shelf. -- Christopher Lynch * MUSIC REFERENCE SERVICES QUARTERLY *Keen insight. . . . A history of the early American operatic stage through the prism of Verdi's early works. Especially pertinent is information on many of the US's most important regional opera house -- material unavailable elsewhere -- and [on the] recording histories of the operas. . . . Deeply edifying. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers. -- S. C. Champagne * CHOICE *Offers informed, trenchant assessments of important Met stagings. . . . Especially insightful about the work of regional companies. . . . Martin's effort combines a critic's eye, a scholar's rigor and a fan's enthusiasm. -- Fred Cohn * OPERA NEWS *Informative and filled with engaging materials and useful data. . . . Provides a wealth of details about how different religious beliefs in different areas created barriers against opera. -- Claudio Vellutini * CAMBRIDGE OPERA JOURNAL *Table of ContentsIntroduction Nabucco I Lombardi alla prima crociata Ernani I due Foscari Attila Macbeth The Country's Growth Stimulates Opera I masnadieri Jérusalem Luisa Miller Rigoletto Opera on Tour and the Rise of Regional Companies Oberto Un giorno di regno Giovanna d'Arco Alzira Il corsaro La battaglia di Legnano Stiffelio Appendix A: The Operas, Their World, Western Hemisphere, and U.S. Premieres Appendix B: The Swift Spread of Ernani Appendix C: Dollar Values and Populations Appendix D: The San Carlo Touring Company: Repertory and Number ofPerformances, 1913/14 through 1928/29 Appendix E: Number of Performances of Verdi's Operas at the Metropolitan, 1883/84 through 2008/9 Appendix F: An Arrangement, a Reduction, and the Score as Written: Stiffelio

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Book SynopsisThe first book about Elliott Carter's only opera--or indeed about any single work by this still-productive modern master. In 1997, the eminent American composer Elliott Carter teamed with British music critic/librettist Paul Griffiths to create the one-act opera What Next? Hailed by the New York Times as "theatrically dynamic" and "poignant," the opera explores how six people work together to emerge from the wreckage of an accident. Today, What Next? enjoys a prominent position in Carter's celebrated "late late" compositional period. In the firstbook to focus exclusively on one Carter composition, Guy Capuzzo uses the metaphors of communication, cooperation, and separation to trace the dramatic arc of What Next? Through an approach that places stage action, words,and music on equal footing, Capuzzo's readings of four excerpts from the opera reveal the inner workings of Carter and Griffiths's tragicomedy. Elliott Carter's "What Next?": Communication, Cooperation, and Separation sheds light on a significant work by a major figure in twentieth-century concert music and will be of interest to all who study American music, vocal music, and musical criticism. Guy Capuzzo is associate professor of music theory at the University of North Carolina - Greensboro.Trade ReviewKeenly perceptive. . . . Excellent choice of an illustrative `analytical vignette' at end of chapter 2. . . . Illustrated with exceptionally well-produced music examples that will aid anyone wanting to be rewarded by close listening to the connections he uncovers. -- Marguerite Boland * MUSIC & LETTERS *Among the best musicological writings devoted to Carter. . . . Greatly facilitated by a presentation that is remarkably clear. -- Denis Vermaelen * REVUE DE MUSICOLOGIE *A rare example of a book devoted entirely to a single, recent composition. . . . Show[s] how Carter manages to create a reliably functioning mechanism more than equal to the demands he makes on it. -- Arnold Whittall * MUSICAL TIMES *In elucidating the inner workings of Carter's musical language Capuzzo makes a significant contribution to Carter scholarship, and to the literature of contemporary music theory. -- -- John Link, William Paterson UniversityA fascinating study. . . . Capuzzo addresses the inner clarity and expressive immediacy of 'What Next,' as well as the tragicomedy.'OPERA NEDERLAND [Mark Duijnstee] Capuzzo's prose style is plain-spoken and approachable. . . . Lively and rewarding. OPERA NEWS [Arlo McKinnon] Full Review In his insightful book-length analytical study of this opus, Guy Capuzzo has contributed an invaluable resource to Carter studies, as well as to post-tonal music theory. . . . [He] expresses his ideas with clarity, and those who do not have a predilection for technical analysis will still be able to gain much insight into the narrative, drama, history, and critical reception of the work. Readers are also fortunate that the quality of the publication is quite high, and University of Rochester Press is to be commended for their attention to editorial detail. Furthermore, Capuzzo's study makes a nice companion to those books on Carter and his music already in the press's catalogue (Carter 1997 and Meyer and Shreffler 2008). Anyone who knows these sources will certainly want Capuzzo's monograph as part of their collection as well. -- J. Daniel Jenkins Full Review * MUSIC THEORY ONLINE *Table of ContentsIntroduction Preliminaries An Analytic Approach to What Next? Identity Formation in Episodes 1-2 Communication and Irony in the Explanation Episodes Cooperation and Confusion in the Hope Episodes Communication and Gender Breakdown in Episodes 37-38 Appendix: Libretto Excerpts Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThe first comprehensive study of Verdi's perennially popular opera Il trovatore, written by one of the world's great Verdi authorities. No full-length study has ever been written on Il trovatore, in his day Verdi's most successful stage work. This book by one of the world's great Verdi authorities fills that gap, providing a comprehensive look at the opera,from its genesis and structure to its early performance history and critical reception. Starting with the background of the opera, the volume traces the origins of the original play by Antonio García Gutiérrez, El trovador, and offers a new, more credible source for the drama. In addition, it examines the evolution of the libretto, the music, and the arrangement of the narrative, revealing innovative musical and dramatic features not seenby other critics. The book also includes a discussion of contemporary reviews and a section on some of the important performers in the twentieth century (for example, Toscanini and Caruso), as well as a consideration of several ofthe more unusual stagings of the work mounted during the final decades of the century. With these and other explorations, Martin Chusid offers a thorough survey of Verdi's Il trovatore and in the process deepens and enhances our encounter with one of the mainstays of the operatic reparatory. Martin Chusid is Professor Emeritus of Music, New York University, and founding director of the American Institute for Verdi Studies.Trade ReviewChusid has offered us an effective analytical and conceptual introduction to one of Verdi's perennial masterpieces, and his love for Verdi's middle-period operas shines through on every page. Significant and original contributions to the canon of Verdi scholarship. * JOURNAL OF MUSICOLOGICAL RESEARCH *His wide-ranging account makes for engaging and entertaining reading. Many passages from Verdi's and Cammarano's letters are translated into English here for the first time. [Chusid's book is] an essential introductory study of the opera. Cogent observations on matters of tonal structure. Valuable background about the Spanish theatrical context of the play and its operatic origins in 'Scribe's libretto for Halévy's opera La juive. General readers including opera-goers and record collectors, will find it a wonderful source of valuable background information about the opera, and scholars will be able to build on it as a starting point for further research and investigation. -- David Lawton * VERDI FORUM *Who could have imagined that Verdi's most popular opera, Il trovatore, would have to wait until now for a monograph in English? But Martin Chusid, with his vast experience in the world of Verdi studies and whose archive at NYU has supplied original material for his analysis, is the right person to have written it. After reading Chusid's remarks about the reception and history of Il trovatore and understanding Verdi's complex treatment of structure and tonality, no one can think any more of the opera as a 'concert in costume,' one that simply requires the four greatest singers in the world. -- -- Philip Gossett, general editor, The Works of Giuseppe VerdiTable of ContentsThe Spanish Background and the Play El trovador Cammarano's Role in Shaping the Libretto andVerdi's Emendations New Wine in Old Bottles: The Drama and the Music The Scene of the "Miserere" The Reception and Diffusion of Il trovatore

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Book SynopsisExamines the impact of contemporary ideas about the psyche and neglected yet crucial artistic influences on the psychological dimension of Wagner's operas, especially Die Feen, Der fliegende Holländer, Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, and the Ring. Wagner's Visions studies crucial influences on Wagner's dramatic style during the years before and just after the failed Dresden revolutionary uprising of 1849. Offering a detailed examination of Die Feen, Wagner's least-known complete opera, together with analysis of Der fliegende Holländer, Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, and the four Ring dramas, Katherine Syer explores the inner experiences of Wagner's protagonists. Sources ofparticular political significance include the fables of the eighteenth-century Venetian playwright Carlo Gozzi, the Iphigenia operas of Christoph Willibald Gluck, and the legacy of the martyr Theodor Körner, whose poetry became the lingua franca of the revolutionary movement to liberate and unify Germany. Syer's book offers fresh insights into the historical context that gave rise to Wagner's dramatic art, revealing how his distinct and powerful imagery is intimately bound up with the crises and instabilities of his era. Katherine R. Syer is associate professor of theatre and musicology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.Trade ReviewAn insightful analysis of Wagner's operas, which displays a profound understanding of the deep structure of operas and is impressive in its ability to draw together a wide variety of different phenomena. Not least because of the extremely skillful handling of language that leads to vivid and concise descriptions of both artworks and their historical and cultural environments, it is an enjoyable read. * MUSIC & LETTERS *Seldom, if ever, has Wagner's music been written about in such a lyrically beautiful way, with such penetrating insights. * WAGNERSPECTRUM *Accomplished and absorbing. . . . One of the strongest recent contributions to Wagner studies. * MUSICAL TIMES *Just when you think that scholarship has covered every angle of Wagner's work, along comes an author with yet another way of looking at it. In this wide-ranging study . . . [a]n impressive aspect of Syer's analysis is the frequency and skill with which she peels off the textual layers of Wagner's creations -- the revised accounts, different prose sketches, libretto revisions, staging comments etc. [This, along with the emphasis on live performance,] ensures Wagner's Visions a place among the most significant Wagner books of the decade. * WAGNER JOURNAL *Well-written narrative. With her unique insight into the early works, Syer sheds new light on the complex psychological elements of their characters and the creative strategies that set the political tone for the later works. Recommended [for] upper-division undergraduates through faculty. * CHOICE *Syer's new study is a major contribution to the scholarship on the first half of Wagner's career; let us hope that a study of the second half is forthcoming. * WAGNER NOTES *[A]n outstanding book on Wagner's literary roots in fairy tale, German Hellenism, and German patriotic Romanticism. Syer also brings further illumination to the phenomenon of psychological drama in Wagner's stage works, showing how these three-pronged roots played a role in the formation of Wagner's dramatic -- even fantastical -- protopsychology. This excellent contribution places Syer firmly among the leading Wagner scholars of her generation. -- -- Bryan Gilliam, Duke UniversityTable of ContentsTo Be Born in Leipzig in 1813 Fairytale Madness: Wagner and Gozzi Senta the Somnambulist Opposing Worlds: Tannhäuser and Lohengrin Hunding's Horns, Wotan's Storms, Sieglinde's Nightmare Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThis book explores the crossroads between autobiographical narratives and musical composition in Alban Berg's Lulu, unveiling aspects of encoded social customs, gender identity, and personal experiences within musical structures. Exploring the crossroads between autobiographical narrative and musical composition, this book examines Berg's transformation of Frank Wedekind's Erdgeist and Die Büchse der Pandora -- the plays used in the formationof the libretto for Lulu -- according to notions of gender identity, social customs, and the aesthetics of modernity in the Vienna of the 1920s and 1930s. While Berg modernized several aspects of the plays and incorporatedserial techniques of composition from Arnold Schoenberg, he never let go of the idealistic Wagnerian perspectives of his youth. In fact, he went as far as reconfiguring aspects of Richard Wagner's life as an ideal identity to beplayed out in the compositional process. In composing the opera, Berg also reflected on the most important cultural figures in fin-de-siècle Vienna that affected his worldview, including Karl Kraus, Emil Lucka, Otto Weininger, andothers. Combining analysis of Berg's correspondence, numerous sketches for Lulu, and the finished work with interpretive models drawn from cultural studies and philosophy, this book elucidates the ways in which Berg grappled at the end of his life with his self-image as an "incorrigible romantic," and explains aspects of his musical language that have been considered strange or anomalous in Berg scholarship. Silvio J. dos Santos isassistant professor of musicology at the University of Florida.Trade ReviewDr. dos Santos has not only contributed a uniquely compelling work to the existing body of literature on Berg's music, but he has also proved that fluency in multiple methodologies and fields of inquiry can give scholars access to analyses of unprecedented nuance and scope. Cultural historians will benefit from his work as much as theorists of early twelve-tone music. * GERMAN STUDIES REVIEW *Succeeds in demonstrating how very detailed and multifaceted the engagement is, in Berg's Lulu, with the presence of Wagner['s music] and with ideas related to that presence. We can hope that [Dos Santos's] monograph is the impetus for further new insights about Lulu and for Berg research generally. -- Kordula Knaus * DIE MUSIKFORSCHUNG *[Santos has] much to say about the dramatic representation of Lulu herself, and the role of a tonality-acknowledging 12-tone technique in that representation. Makes good use of the multiplicity of recent work on Berg's manuscripts and other archival materials to outline a response to Wagner, and to modern life, that was more psychological (not excluding a possible element of erotomania) than philosophical or spiritual. -- Arnold Whittall * MUSICAL TIMES *In Narratives of Identity in Alban Berg's 'Lulu,' Silvio dos Santos goes above and beyond prior Berg scholarship with inspired and admirably thorough research. This complex and significant volume, based on expert examination of Berg's score, is the most important study of Lulu's character to come across my path in many years. A compelling narrative, which promises to be of lasting importance to scholars, musicians, and the opera-loving public. -- Mark DeVoto, Tufts UniversityTable of ContentsIntroduction Between Schoenberg and Wagner Berg as Wagner: In Pursuit of an Ideal Identity Refiguring Tristan The Bild Motif and Lulu's Idenity Marriage as Prostitution Masculine, Feminine, and "In-between": Geschwitz as neue Frau Conclusion: Berg's Wagnerism Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisOffers fresh perspectives on the function of nationalist thought in the cosmopolitan opera world, with particular emphasis on the idea of "Russianness" in four nineteenth-century operas by Glinka, Serov, Tchaikovsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov. In the nineteenth century, Russian composers and critics were encouraged to cultivate a national style to distinguish their music from the dominant Italian, French, and German traditions. Not Russian Enough? explores this aspiration for a nationalist musical tradition as it was carried out in the cosmopolitan world of opera. Rutger Helmers analyzes the cultural context, music, and reception of four important operas: Glinka's A Life for the Tsar (1836), Serov's Judith (1863), Tchaikovsky's The Maid of Orléans (1881), and Rimsky-Korsakov's The Tsar's Bride (1899). He discusses such issues as the influence of Italian and French opera, the use of foreign subjects, the application of local color, and the adherence to the classics, and considers how these related to a sense of "Russianness." Besides yielding new insights for each of these works, this study offers a fresh perspective on the function of nationalist thought in the nineteenth-century Russian opera world.. Rutger Helmers is Assistant Professor in Historical Musicology at the University of Amsterdam and lectures in literary and cultural studies at Radboud University Nijmegen.Trade ReviewHelmers's book demonstrates--before our very eyes--how arbitrary a principle was the nationalistic desire to create, in the cultural realm, identification [with one's own nation] and differentiation [from other nations and peoples]...In [today's] times when nationalisms are flaring up, this book is something very like necessary reading. -- Christoph Flamm * DIE MUSIKFORSCHUNG *Revealing and convincing. The book is most valuable for the individual insights Helmers brings to the four case studies. The main revelation of the book is that in terms of the concept of Russianness, flexibility in composition and ambiguity in interpretation were the norm during the period in question. Helmers has set an example and made an admirable contribution in his coverage of the reception of nineteenth-century Russian opera from a new perspective. Investigating often excluded connections with European traditions, this book serves as a valuable complement to existing accounts. * MUSIC & LETTERS *Helmers's lucid and lively style, as well as his sensitivity to musical and cultural identities, make [this] an obvious recommendation for any collection serving research in Western music. * MUSIC REFERENCE SERVICES QUARTERLY *Helmers provides many fascinating insights for anyone anxious to learn more about that works that make up this still-emerging repertoire. Written in a straightforward and accesible style, [it] will serve well not only the specialist scholar, but also the general reader who wishes to know more about nineteenth-century Russian opera. * FONTES ARTIS MUSICAE *Not Russian Enough? is certainly timely enough, and clever enough, and engaging enough. A fresh look at the origins and growth of Russian opera in the nineteenth century, it offers a sustained critique of entrenched misevaluations, as well as a de-ghettoized appreciation of the distinctive qualities of a repertory that has achieved unprecedented worldwide currency on the twenty-first-century operatic stage. -- -- Richard Taruskin, author of Defining Russia Musically and The Oxford History of Western MusicTable of ContentsIntroduction: The Part and the Whole A Life for the Tsar and Bel Canto Opera Subject Matter, Local Color, and National Style in Judith French Theatricality and Inadvertent Russianisms in The Maid of Orleans The Tsar's Bride and the Dilemma of History Conclusion Abbreviations Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisWarren Roberts has discovered a Rossini that others have not seen, a composer who commented ironically and satirically on religion and politics in Post-Napoleonic Europe. This book examines Rossini within the context of his own time, one of Napoleonic domination of Italy, restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in Naples in 1815, and the 1830 Revolution in Paris. Using the techniques of the historian,and reading librettos as texts, the author analyzes the five operas treated in detail in the book (Il barbiere di Siviglia, Cenerentola, La gazza ladra, Matilde di Shabran, and Il viaggio a Reims) as responses, each in its own way, to the history that the composer experienced. Roberts shows that Rossini made probing commentaries on politics and religion in a time of reaction and revolution, and that the composer was well-informed on post-Napoleonic politics. Rossini's comic writing served very serious purposes, exposing the problems and complications of an age that he observed with striking clarity. Warren Roberts is Professor Emeritusof History at the University at Albany, SUNY, and has published extensively on eighteenth-century French culture.Trade ReviewAstounding...Unique in its historical approach, which, by confronting artistic creativity, contemporary historical developments, and socio-political contexts, provides a priceless key for anyone interested in analyzing the early-eighteenth-century milieu thanks to which Rossini became (as Stendhal put it) 'the Napoleon of a musical era. -- Federico Gon * AD PARNASSUM *Takes a unique approach to Gioachino Rossini and five of his operas. The author puts the operas in historical context and argues that they could have been written only in a post-revolutionary Napoleonic age. Roberts calls these works operas of the historical present. Rossini is responding to the sociological and ideological currents of the times. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers. * CHOICE *Rossini and Post-Napoleonic Europe is a very original and enterprising project -- one, I think, which could only have been undertaken by a historian. It is a most valuable addition to the literature on Rossini. * Anthony Arblaster, author of Viva la Libertà! Politics in Opera *[A] magisterial contribution to our understanding of the complex relationship between cultural and political history. * JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN STUDIES *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction Setting the Stage: Opera Buffa and Comedy of Manners in an Age of Democratic Revolution Rossini, Mozart, Paisiello, and the Barber of Seville Jane Austen, Goya, Rossini, and the Post-Napoleonic Age: La Cenerentola Rossini, Beethoven, and Rescue Opera: Fidelio and La gazza ladra Rossini, Ferretti, Matilde di Shabran, and the Revolution of 1820-21 Stendhal and Rossini in Paris: Il viaggio a Reims, Le Comte Ory, and the July Revolution Conclusion: Thinking about Rossini Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisExamines the remarkable career of leading soprano castrato Venanzio Rauzzini (1746-1810), the first castrato to make Britain his home. Venanzio Rauzzini (1746-1810), the celebrated Italian castrato, is best known for his performance in Mozart's Lucio Silla in 1772, with which Mozart was so pleased that he composed for the singer the famous motet Exsultate Jubilate. In 1774, Rauzzini moved to London where he performed three seasons of serious operas at the King's Theatre. From 1777 until his death in 1810, he was the director of the concert series in Bath, a series that matched the prestige of any that were given in London. In addition, he composed prolifically, writing music for eleven operas. This book is a study of Rauzzini's remarkable yet often overlooked career in Britain. Paul Rice chronicles Rauzzini's performances at the King's Theatre and examines his leadership of the Bath subscription concerts from 1780-1810, recovering much of the repertory. Rice shows in detail how Rauzzini responded musically to the social and political conditions of his adopted country, and analyzes the castrato's reception, as well as compositional choices, shedding new light on changing musical tastes in late eighteenth-century Britain. Paul F. Rice is Professor of Musicology at the School of Music, Memorial University of Newfoundland.Trade Review[Venanzio Rauzzini] was an intrepid survivor in a world that held Italians, and particularly Italian castrati, as highly suspect. Paul Rice has brought together a great deal of biographical detail about Rauzzini's life. He has made it possible for us easily to flesh-out the headline facts that are presented in the Grove and Oxford articles and the work of other authors. [Musical] extracts and analyses...give us an impression of Rauzzini's own evolving vocal abilities and those of his singers. The author seems to have left no stone unturned in seeking out his subject. -- Andrew Pink * BRIO *The scope of [Rauzzini's] influence enables Rice to...use Rauzzini's career as a focal point in a broader examination of social and cultural life in Brain, and specifically London and Bath. [Rice] attempts to glean information about the character of his sound, not only from contemporary descriptions but also from the music written for him by Mozart and Sacchini. Rice manages his materials admirably, and there is much here to interest scholars of eighteenth-century music, particularly those interested in concert culture and the practicalities of singers' lives. An engaging portrait of a man who left a considerable legacy across many areas of musical life. -- Chloe Valenti * AD PARNASSUM *Fascinating insights concerning Rauzzini's compositional techniques and the characteristics of the arias he wrote for himself. The musical analysis undertaken in the book, illustrated with a large number of music examples, reveals Rauzzini's accomplished compositional style for the different technical demands of domestic music-making. . . Broaden[s] the common picture of the virtuoso opera singer and demonstrate[s] his expertise in different fields and his acceptance at the heart of Britain's social and cultural life. -- Ingeborg Zechner * MUSIC & LETTERS *Rauzzini is unique among castratos for having spent more than half his life in England. Rice is the first to tackle in detail the whole of Rauzzini's professional life across the 36 years the singer spent in England. The programmes for these concerts give a fascinating picture of changing tastes. Rauzzini was a canny director, endeavouring to engage the best soloists. Rice provides a generous quantity of music examples that demonstrate Rauzzini's mastery of the galant style. A rich resource. -- Patricia Howard * MUSICAL TIMES *Table of ContentsPreface Rauzzini's European Career A Debut Season at the King's Theatre, 1774-75 Two Further Seasons at the King's Theatre, 1775-77 Concerts and Composing, 1774-81 A Continuing Relationship with the King's Theatre A Life in Bath The Bath Concerts Final Curtain Appendix A: Concert Programs, 1786-1810 Appendix B: Operatic Roles Performed by Venanzio Rauzzini Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisHow do you create a style of opera that speaks to everyone, when no one agrees on what it should say -- or how? French and Italian varieties of opera have intermingled and informed one another from the genre's first decades onward. Yet we still have only a hazy view of why and how those intersections occurred and what they meant to a givenopera's creators and audiences. Margaret Butler's Musical Theater in Eighteenth-Century Parma: Entertainment, Sovereignty, Reform tackles these issues, examining performance, spectatorship, and politics in the Bourbon-controlled, northern Italian city of Parma in the mid-eighteenth century. Reconstructing the French context for Tommaso Traetta's Italian operas that consciously set out to fuse French and Italian elements, Butler explores Traetta's operas and recreations in Parma of operas and ballets by Jean-Philippe Rameau and other French composers. She shows that Parma's brand of entertainment is one in which Traetta's operas occupy points along a continuum representing a long and rich tradition of adaptation and generic play. Such a reading calls into question the very notion of operatic reform, showing the need for a more flexible conception of a volatile moment in opera's history. The book elucidates the complicated circumstances in which entertainments were created that spoke not only to Parma's multicultural audiences but also to an increasingly cosmopolitan Europe. MARGARET R. BUTLER is Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.Trade ReviewBroad-reaching reflections . . . help us to reach a better understanding of opera reforms in eighteenth-century Europe. Butler shows, on the basis of primary evidence, the complex interplay of curiosity and animosity resulting from the French invasion. Intriguing conclusions on the practices of adaptation as a creative and innovative process. Refreshing. -- Pierpaolo Polzonetti * SECM NEWSLETTER *Musical Theater in Eighteenth-Century Parma brings a huge amount of new information and insight to the field. This book stands out most favorably in comparison to the recent literature because it treats all aspects involved in the phenomenon of musical theater: spoken theater and operatic theater are seen as points on a single continuum, embedded in the general currents of intellectual and economic politics in Parma, a small duchy with cosmopolitan ambitions. -- Lorenzo Bianconi, University of BolognaIn its assembly and analysis of a great range of sources, this case study contributes greatly to our understanding of mid-eighteenth-century opera, to French-Italian cultural relations, and to institutional histories of opera. A welcome balance of close analysis of those works which have survived and...sensitive elucidation of the cultural and political context. -- Mark Darlow * EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY STUDIES *Butler . . . possesses a profound knowledge of the northern Italian performance circuit in this period [and a] refreshing point of view. This volume demonstrates that [changes in operatic practices during the mid-1700s were] . . . a movement, an "esprit du temps," with different alternatives that emerge where there are large outlays of capital as well as a visionary individual able to control the theatrical production. An important contribution to the understanding of this complex period. * AD PARNASSUM *An indispensable study for anyone who hopes to glean a comprehensive understanding of eighteenth-century musical theater. Show[s] us salient aspects of the economics of theatrical productions and remind[s] us that there is a need for us as scholars to look beyond composer, librettist, and even performer in order to appreciate other members of the "production troupe" who had important roles but may not have been as visible to contemporary audiences-or to us, until now. * NOTES, Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association *Succeeds in bringing out the dynastic and international-political implications of [the subject], and, in great detail, takes account of a complex and multifaceted cultural complex, doing so in a style both fluent and engaging. -- Lorenzo Benedetti * AUREA PARMA *Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Genre Problem: Reform as Continuum and Brand The Genesis of Parma's "Project" Behind the Scenes: Production and Management at the Teatro Ducale The French Entertainments: Creation, Publicity, Propaganda Moving On While Looking Back: Links, Traditions, and Traetta's First Parma Operas The End of the End of Reform: The Wedding, The French Ambassador's Opera, Traetta's Departure Conclusion: Reform Revisited Appendix 1: General Chronology Bibliography

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Book SynopsisA long-needed and up-to-date overview of the syntax and principles that make Verdi's operas so effective and so beloved today. Verdi's art emerged from a rich array of dramatic and musical practices operative in the Italy of his day. Drawing the reader into his creative world, this study (translated from the French original by the author himself) begins where Verdi began when it came time to set notes to paper: the libretto. Designed for the non-Italophone reader, Steven Huebner's Verdi and the Art of Italian Opera explains key principles of Italian poetry that shaped his music. From there, Huebner outlines the various musical textures available to the composer, including an exploration of the characteristics of recitative and aria. Working outward, subsequent chapters explore the syntax of Verdi's melodic writing and the larger-level forms that he used. A concluding chapter considers ways of conceiving musical unity in his operas.Table of ContentsList of Musical Examples List of Tables Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Versification and Prosody 2. Textures 3. Melody 4. Form 5. By Way of Conclusion: Unity and Analytical Paradigms Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThis biography of Minna Planer, Richard Wagner's wife of 30 years, reveals her as a self-assured woman and artist who was vital to her husband's creative life. When Richard Wagner first met Minna Planer in 1834, he was an unknown conductor, she a popular actress. His hectic pursuit of her affections culminated in marriage in 1836. Minna endured poverty with him, nursed him through chronic illness, followed him across Europe as he fled from creditors and pursued his artistic goals, and sought to provide him with the stable domestic and erotic life that he craved. He played his works to her as he wrote them, up to Tannhäuser and Lohengrin, and set store by her opinions. But when he went on the run as a wanted revolutionary, Minna only reluctantly followed him into Swiss exile. Domestic peace tentatively prevailed, but was ultimately destroyed by Wagner's passion for Mathilde Wesendonck. In 1858, he and Minna separated, she returned home to Germany, and subsequent efforts at reconciliation proved ultimately impossible. They remained married, however, until Minna's death in 1866. Despite having been at Richard's side as he matured into the composer of the Ring and Tristan, Minna has been given short shrift by most Wagner commentators. In Eva Rieger's acclaimed biography, translated into English by Chris Walton, the author reveals Minna as a self-assured woman and artist who played a crucial role in the creative life of her husband.Trade ReviewFascinating, detailed, and absorbing. Chris Walton has done a superb job in creating the illusion that this volume was written in English. Detailed footnotes are included as well as a number of germane photographs. Marvelous to read and completely engrossing. * AMERICAN RECORD GUIDE *Through Rieger's vivid and sometimes humorous presentation of Richard and Minna's daily life together, we discover an attractive and also tragic figure, courageous, highly adaptable and generous to the point of offering her last piece of bread to a hungry friend, even when she didn't know what her own next meal would be. -- Anna Stoll Knecht * The Wagner Journal *Table of ContentsIllustrations Abbreviations Notes on this translation Introduction: "He could not breathe without her" Chapter 1. "I have become her despot": From Love to Marriage Chapter 2. "Deprived of incipient motherhood": Riga, London, Paris, 1836-1842 Chapter 3. "Home for me is you alone": Dresden 1842-1847 Chapter 4. "My knucklehead of a husband": Revolution and Its Aftermath, 1848-1850 Chapter 5. "This ridiculous, amorous intrigue": The Jessie Laussot Affair, 1850-1851 Chapter 6. "That good, foolish man...": Exile in Zurich, 1852-1854 Chapter 7. "I'm a poor, stupid woman to have let you go...": Zurich and London, 1854-1856 Chapter 8. "Alas, now all our happiness is gone...": The Wesendonck Scandal, 1857-1858 Chapter 9. The Bitter End: 1858-1859 Chapter 10. "In love and fidelity, your Emma": Emma Herwegh Chapter 11. "...neither wife, housekeeper, nor friend": Dresden, Paris, Biebrich, 1860-1862 Chapter 12. "That weak, blind man...": The end of a marriage, 1863-1866 References Index

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Book SynopsisThis biography of Minna Planer, Richard Wagner's wife of 30 years, reveals her as a self-assured woman and artist who was vital to her husband's creative life. When Richard Wagner first met Minna Planer in 1834, he was an unknown conductor, she a popular actress. His hectic pursuit of her affections culminated in marriage in 1836. Minna endured poverty with him, nursed him through chronic illness, followed him across Europe as he fled from creditors and pursued his artistic goals, and sought to provide him with the stable domestic and erotic life that he craved. He played his works to her as he wrote them, up to Tannhäuser and Lohengrin, and set store by her opinions. But when he went on the run as a wanted revolutionary, Minna only reluctantly followed him into Swiss exile. Domestic peace tentatively prevailed, but was ultimately destroyed by Wagner's passion for Mathilde Wesendonck. In 1858, he and Minna separated, she returned home to Germany, and subsequent efforts at reconciliation proved ultimately impossible. They remained married, however, until Minna's death in 1866. Despite having been at Richard's side as he matured into the composer of the Ring and Tristan, Minna has been given short shrift by most Wagner commentators. In Eva Rieger's acclaimed biography, translated into English by Chris Walton, the author reveals Minna as a self-assured woman and artist who played a crucial role in the creative life of her husband.Trade ReviewFascinating, detailed, and absorbing. Chris Walton has done a superb job in creating the illusion that this volume was written in English. Detailed footnotes are included as well as a number of germane photographs. Marvelous to read and completely engrossing. * AMERICAN RECORD GUIDE *Through Rieger's vivid and sometimes humorous presentation of Richard and Minna's daily life together, we discover an attractive and also tragic figure, courageous, highly adaptable and generous to the point of offering her last piece of bread to a hungry friend, even when she didn't know what her own next meal would be. -- Anna Stoll Knecht * The Wagner Journal *Table of ContentsIllustrations Abbreviations Notes on this translation Introduction: "He could not breathe without her" Chapter 1. "I have become her despot": From Love to Marriage Chapter 2. "Deprived of incipient motherhood": Riga, London, Paris, 1836-1842 Chapter 3. "Home for me is you alone": Dresden 1842-1847 Chapter 4. "My knucklehead of a husband": Revolution and Its Aftermath, 1848-1850 Chapter 5. "This ridiculous, amorous intrigue": The Jessie Laussot Affair, 1850-1851 Chapter 6. "That good, foolish man...": Exile in Zurich, 1852-1854 Chapter 7. "I'm a poor, stupid woman to have let you go...": Zurich and London, 1854-1856 Chapter 8. "Alas, now all our happiness is gone...": The Wesendonck Scandal, 1857-1858 Chapter 9. The Bitter End: 1858-1859 Chapter 10. "In love and fidelity, your Emma": Emma Herwegh Chapter 11. "...neither wife, housekeeper, nor friend": Dresden, Paris, Biebrich, 1860-1862 Chapter 12. "That weak, blind man...": The end of a marriage, 1863-1866 References Index

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Book SynopsisIn 1759 the court of the Italian Duchy of Parma adopted the inspiration of cultural creators who recommended a reform of Italian opera along French lines. These writers favored combining Italian-style music with the wider range of musical genres and scenic variety of French opera. As the prize-winning music critic and commentator George W. Loomis shows in this groundbreaking volume, the young composer Tommaso Traetta was engaged to create new operas responding to these demands.As Loomis deftly demonstrates, Traetta’s operas were largely oriented toward the formal aria, a byproduct of making Italian music an essential component of this cross-cultural fusion. Nevertheless, they were strikingly innovative in their use of chorus, integrated dance, and accompanied recitative. Structurally, the operas reflect the French distinction between scenes of action and divertissements. After a brief flowering in the 1760s, the project was abandoned, primarily for lack of interest, but Traetta’s Parma operas deserve a previously unrecognized place in the history of Western music for their stimulation of opera seria in Italy and beyond. This included the works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, whose genre-defining Idomeneo (1781) proved a turning point in the development of opera.

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Book SynopsisThis book takes advantage of new and often surprising biographical research on the Loder family as a whole and its four main figures, using them to illustrate aspects of music history in the 19th century. Musicians of Bath and Beyond: Edward Loder (1809-1865) and his Family illuminates three areas that have recently attracted much interest: the musical profession, music in the British provinces and colonies, and English Romantic opera. The Loder family was pre-eminent in Bath's musical world in the early nineteenth century. John David Loder (1788-1846) led the theatre orchestra there from 1807, and later the Philharmonic orchestra and Ancient Concerts in London; he also wrote the leading instruction manual on violin playing and taught violin at the Royal Academy of Music. His son Edward James (1809-65) was a brilliant but underrated composer of opera, songs, and piano music. George Loder (1816-68) was a well-known flautist and conductor who made a name in New York and eventually settled in Adelaide, where he conducted the Australian premieres of Les Huguenots, Faust, and other important operas. Kate Fanny Loder (1825-1904) became a successful pianist and teacher in early Victorian London, and she is only now getting her due as a composer. This book takes advantage of new and often surprising biographical research on the Loder family as a whole and its four main figures. It uses them to illustrate several aspects of music history: the position of professional musicians in Victorian society; music in the provinces, especiallyBath and Manchester; the Victorian opera libretto; orchestra direction; violin teaching; travelling musicians in the US and Australasia; opera singers and companies; and media responses to English opera. The concluding section isan intense analysis and reassessment of Edward Loder's music, with special emphasis on his greatest work, the opera Raymond and Agnes. NICHOLAS TEMPERLEY is Professor Emeritus of Musicology at the University ofIllinois at Urbana-Champaign and is a leading authority on Victorian music. CONTRIBUTORS: Stephen Banfield, David Chandler, Andrew Clarke, Liz Cooper, Therese Ellsworth, David J. Golby, Andrew Lamb, Valerie Langfield, Alison Mero, Paul Rodmell, Matthew Spring, Julja Szuster, Nicholas TemperleyTrade ReviewThe importance of this book is in drawing together and developing the stories of [the Loder family]...using their achievements as an analogue to explore Britain's musical culture during the 'long nineteenth century', especially that generated by British-born musicians and of 'English opera' in particular. * BRIO *Explore[s] nineteenth-century musical life in Britain and the challenges faced by musicians living and working at this time...expands the ongoing movement exploring Victorian audiences, experiences, and music...a welcome resource. * CONTEXT: JOURNAL OF MUSIC RESEARCH *[N]ot only informs us of the musical talents and efforts of the Loder family, but also of Temperley's life-long interest . . . and longstanding believe that Edward 'deserves a permanent place in British Musical life' . . . . Overall, the authors are successful in justifying this this point, and their assessment of his musical output is a sound balance of impartiality and commendation. . . . It seems at long last that Edward Loder and his family are finally starting to achieve the recognition they have long deserved. * NABMSA REVIEWS *This book is a major contribution to the history of British music. It is notoriously difficult to bring neglected composers to life but this study, produced to the highest standard, contains everything anyone would want to know about the Loder dynasty and deserves to succeed in raising its profile. -- Peter Dickinson * MUSICAL OPINIION *Musicians of Bath and Beyond is a well-conceived and executed edited collection of clearly focused chapters, arranged in a logical frame, extremely well written, and beautifully produced by The Boydell Press. The book contains sixty illustrations and musical examples, and the index is exemplary. -- MUSICOLOGY AUSTRALIATable of ContentsIntroduction - Nicholas Temperley Earning a Musical Living: The Loders' Career Choices - The Musical Life of Bath, 1800-1850 - Matthew Spring The Theatre Royal, Manchester, in Edward Loder's Time - Liz Cooper The Climate for Opera in London, 1834-1865 - Alison Mero Loder & Sons, Bath: A Band of Musicians - Andrew Clarke A Master Violinist and Teacher: John David Loder - David J. Golby Edward James Loder (1809-1865): A Life in Music - Andrew Lamb George Loder's Contribution to Musical Life in Colonial Australia - Julja Szuster 'A Magnificent Musician': The Career of Kate Fanny Loder (1825-1904) - Therese Ellsworth 'Three Fifths of him Genius and Two Fifths Sheer Fudge': Heights and Depths in Edward Loder's Work' - Nicholas Temperley 'Ah, trait'ress, me betraying': Edward Loder and his Librettos - David Chandler Edward Loder's Serious Operas - Paul Rodmell Raymond and Agnes: Orchestration and Dramatic Characterisation - Valerie Langfield Epilogue: The 1966 Revival of Raymond and Agnes - Nicholas Temperley Select Bibliography

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Book SynopsisInsights into an opera stage director's work from an internationally acclaimed director and teacher. Opera is nowadays performed worldwide. But as an art form it is little understood by performers and audiences alike. The Crafty Art of Opera wants to change that. Here, Michael Hampe brings glimpses of the director's work to a wider audience, uncovering the many techniques and rules that should inform an opera's staging: the need for singers to know their orchestra, the importance of space around singers, the gestures of languages, what we all can learn from Mozart, and the primacy of sense over effect, to name but a few. He shows how stories, through music, become tangible and real. Packed with many anecdotes from the author's luminous career, this book is dedicatedto opera-lovers who want to understand 'how it is done'; to opera-makers who want to better understand their craft; and, last but not least, to those who loathe opera, in order to prove them wrong. Eminently readable, it brings both insight and wit from a life spent in opera as director and teacher. MICHAEL HAMPE is an internationally acclaimed opera stage director. The Crafty Art of Opera was published in German as Opernschule.Trade ReviewI can't imagine a better way to introduce budding singers to the dramatic part of music drama. -- Stephen Brown, * TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT *Table of ContentsPreface What is opera? The heart The seven 'W's Sense and sensuality Bodies in space Movement Le physique du rôle Discomfort and inconvenience Bank robbers Pretend theatre The 'trizophrenic' upbeat The complete music-actor Mozart Recitative Being comic 'Too many notes...' Dramaturgy Breaking the rules The harmony of the spheres In place of an epilogue: my teachers Appendix 1: All the 'useful rules' in overview, for those who make opera Appendix 2: A masterclass in opera, for those who love it or hate it Index of names and works

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Book SynopsisBizet's Carmen Uncovered exposes the myths and stereotypes that so often surround this much loved opera by exploring its first staging, and the particularly Spanish contexts in which the opera was conceived, written, and staged. What were the forces that brought Carmen to the Operatic stage? There were certainly many: for example, the liberation of Spain from the Napoleonic rule in 1813; the subsequent emigration of Spanish artists and musicians to form an active community in Paris; the mid-century mushrooming of interest in visiting Spain facilitated by the establishment of railways. The first part of this book explores the reasons behind the French mania for Spain, and the second demonstrates how the travels and writings of Prosper Mérimée, particularly in his novella Carmen, but also in his earlier writings sent back to Paris from his first visit to Spain in the 1830s, were incorporated into the opera. What were the stories he incorporated into the fateful tale of the soldier who murders his gypsy lover? And how important was the Spanish background to this tragic tale? This book explores how the stereotypes of Andalusian-gypsy spectacle, banditry, and the fiestas of the bullfight contributed to the eventual success of Bizet's opera. How did Bizet and his librettists, Meilhac and Halévy -- and the scenographic team -- capture the spirit of Spain so strongly as to seduce opera-goers around the world? And how did it hybridise real Spanish music and French Opera with the essential 'moments' of Spanish life so important to Mérimée and his librettists? The original staging of the opera is used to examine both 'places' and characters, in particular of realities and mythologies about gypsies in the nineteenth century. It concludes with the first ways in which the opera reached the stage, both in terms of its scenography and how it was sung, played, and acted. Copiously illustrated with materials emanating from before the first production, the book reveals some of the realities of the Spain which went into this ground-breaking opera, to this day continually re-invented with new angles, new settings, and new interpretations.Trade Review[This] book is rigorous in its presentation of musical and textual sources (translations as well as original French and Spanish quotations are provided throughout), and the bibliography and index are thorough. is is an elegantly written and entertaining study, which makes a major contribution to our understanding of Carmen and of nineteenth-century French hispanomanie. Its central goal is to reconstruct Carmen's genesis; in doing so, Langham Smith provides a fascinating account of the mobility of cultural forms. -- Lucy O'Meara * Modern Language Review *It moves smoothly among music, literature, and the visual arts; it is erudite, engagingly written, helpfully broken down into small subsections, and richly illustrated. The book will appeal far beyond the theatre professions: in fact, it is accessible to any music lover, the only prerequisite being some familiarity with Carmen. * H-France Review *Authoritative and engaging book (which is richly illustrated, including 19 colour plates) Langham Smith puts Carmen back on the stage, to be viewed with fresh eyes and heard with open ears. * Opera *Table of ContentsVitoria and Waterloo: French Music and the Peninsula Wars Pictures and jottings: Carmen and the rise of Andalusian Tourism Spain on the Paris stage From Novella to Libretto Libretto into Opera The Forgotten Englishman Carmen's Places Carmen the Gypsy In the Pit, on the Stage

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Book SynopsisExplores the political meanings that Italian opera - its composers, agents and institutions - had for audiences in eighteenth-century Britain. The reign of Queen Anne (1702-1714) was pivotal for both politics and opera in Britain. In this study, Thomas McGeary brings together a wide range of sources to show how the worlds of politics and opera were entwined. The associations that Italian singing and singers acquired by the 1690s were used in partisan Whig-Tory writings. Rather than a foreign invasion, McGeary shows how the introduction of Italian-style opera was a native product that grew out of plans for a new theatre in the Haymarket. A crucial event for opera was Handel's arrival in London in 1710. While the criticism of opera by Whig writers such as Richard Steele and Joseph Addison is well known, McGeary uncovers how the early promotion and sponsorship of opera was, in fact, largely a Whig enterprise and cultural program. Indeed, major political figures (mostly Whigs) participated in the support and patronage of opera. Opera and Politics in Queen Anne's Britain will be required reading for opera scholars and cultural and political historians of eighteenth-century Britain, as well those interested in the vibrant literature culture of the period.Table of ContentsIntroduction 1 Opera in the English Manner 2 The Infiltration of Italian Music and Singing 3 Italian and English Singing and Partisan Politics 4 The Haymarket Theatre: A Whig Project 5 Whigs and Opera in the Italian Manner 6 1710: The Year of Great Change in Politics and Opera 7 Whigs Confront Opera: Britain at a Machiavellian Moment 8 Addison: Opera and the Politics of Politeness 9 The Whig Campaign for English Opera; Handel Celebrates the Peace Epilogue Appendix 1: Operatic Works Produced (or Known) in London, ca. 1660-1704 Appendix 2: Principal Independent Theatrical Masques Produced in London, 1676-1705 Appendix 3: Opera Performances by Season in London, 1705-1714 Appendix 4: Aria Types in All-sung Operas Produced in London, 1705-1714. Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThe first volume of this monumental study of Handel's operatic works, covering the first seventeen operas. This first of the classic two-volume survey of Handel's operas was first published in 1987 and reissued in a revised paperback edition in 1995. Now it is brought back into print in a year which has seen numerous productions and recordings of the operas and which marks the 250th anniversary of Handel's death. Their revival in the modern theatre - not a single opera was staged or performed anywhere between 1754 and 1920 - has been among the most remarkable phenomena in the history of the art, and is due in no small measure to the painstaking research of Dean and Knapp in volume one, and Dean himself in volume two, published by Boydell in 2006. This first volume devotes a chapter to each of Handel's first seventeen operas, offering a full synopsis and study of the libretto, extensive discussions of the music, a performance history, and a comparison of the different versions of the opera. In addition there are several general chapters on the historical and stylistic context of Handel's operatic career to 1726, and a number of Appendices including a list of performances during Handel's life and the location of librettos, Handel's borrowings, Handel's singers, and modern stage productions up to the end of 1993. WINTON DEAN is a distinguished Handelian scholar and writer on opera. He is a former vice-president of the Georg-Friedrich-Handel Gesellschaft in Halle and a founding Council Member of the Handel Institute in London. JOHN MERRILL KNAPP died in 1993. He was Emeritus Professor of Music, Princeton University and the editor of two volumes of the German edition of Handel's complete works, and author of The Joy of Opera.Trade ReviewOne of the great monuments of musical scholarship of our day - a mine of information lucidly delved, sharply stimulating...a pleasure to read for its crisply expressed, infinitely discerning and above all loving responses to the works themselves. * FINANCIAL TIMES *This volume is a monument to the source-critical method. It is a rigorous investigation of the bewilderingly abundant musical and literary sources of each opera, and its most lasting influence will be on future editions of Handel's music. * EARLY MUSIC *This is a volume that every listener to or viewer of Handel's operas will want to purchase, and examine at length...Top marks for this reissue. * FANFARE *

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Book SynopsisIndispensable reading for historians and musicologists as well as those interested in Wagner's philosophy and the aesthetics of music. Despite the enormous and accelerating worldwide interest in Wagner leading to the bicentenary of his birth in 2013, his prose writings have received scant scholarly attention. Wagner's book-length essay on Beethoven, written to celebrate the centenary of Beethoven's birth in 1870, is really about Wagner himself rather than Beethoven. It is generally regarded as the principal aesthetic statement of the composer's later years, representing a reassessment ofthe ideas of the earlier Zurich writings, especially Oper und Drama, in the light of the experience gained through the composition of Tristan und Isolde, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and the greater part of DerRing des Nibelungen. It contains Wagner's most complete exegesis of his understanding of Schopenhauer's philosophy and its perceived influence on the compositional practice of his later works. The essay also influenced the young Nietzsche. It is an essential text in the teaching of not only Wagnerian thought but also late nineteenth-century musical aesthetics in general. Until now the English reader with no access to the German original has been obliged to work from two Victorian translations. This brand new edition gives the German original and the newly translated English text on facing pages. It comes along with a substantial introduction placing the essay not onlywithin the wider historical and intellectual context of Wagner's later thought but also in the political context of the establishment of the German Empire in the 1870s. The translation is annotated throughout with a full bibliography. Richard Wagner's Beethoven will be indispensable reading for historians and musicologists as well as those interested in Wagner's philosophy and the aesthetics of music. ROGER ALLEN is Fellow and Tutor in Music at St Peter's College, Oxford.Trade ReviewThis new translation will make it easier for those interested in Wagner to comprehend the musician's elusive philosophy on music, and will place this, the best-known of the composer's writings on Beethoven, in historical context. * FONTES ARTIS MUSICAE *This is a publication built to last. * THE WAGNER JOURNAL *Table of ContentsIntroduction Richard Wagner's Beethoven [German text and English translation] Appendix: 'Beethoven u[nd] d[ie] deutsche Nation [German Text] Select Bibliography

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Book SynopsisOffers histories of music drama beginning with Wagner's Parsifal and then looking at works by Arnold Schoenberg, Richard Strauss, Luigi Dallapiccola, Luigi Nono and Hans Werner Henze. This book is both a telling of operatic histories 'after' Richard Wagner, and a philosophical reflection upon the writing of those histories. Historical musicology reckons with intellectual and cultural history, and vice versa. The 'after' of the title denotes chronology, but also harmony and antagonism within a Wagnerian tradition. Parsifal, in which Wagner attempted to go beyond his achievement in the Ring, to write 'after' himself,is followed by two apparent antipodes: the strenuously modernist Arnold Schoenberg and the æstheticist Richard Strauss. Discussion of Strauss's Capriccio, partly in the light of Schoenberg's Moses und Aron, reveals amore 'political' work than either first acquaintance or the composer's 'intention' might suggest. Then come three composers from subsequent generations: Luigi Dallapiccola, Luigi Nono, and Hans Werner Henze. Geographical context is extended to take in Wagner's Italian successors; the problem of political emancipation in and through music drama takes another turn here, confronting challenges and opportunities in more avowedly 'politically engaged' art. A final section explores the world of staging opera, of so-called Regietheater, as initiated by Wagner himself. Stefan Herheim's celebrated Bayreuth production of Parsifal, and various performances of Lohengrin are discussed, before looking back to Mozart (Don Giovanni) and forward to Alban Berg's Lulu and Nono's Al gran sole carico d'amore. Throughout, the book invites us to consider how we might perceive the æsthetic and political integrity of the operatic work 'after Wagner'. After Wagner will be invaluable to anyone interested in twentieth-century music drama and its intersection with politics and cultural history. It will also appeal to those interested in Richard Wagner's cultural impact on succeeding generations of composers. MARK BERRY is Senior Lecturer in Music at Royal Holloway, University of London.Trade ReviewBerry presents a wide range of sometimes unconventional interpretations of the works in question..[the book] can be recommended to anyone looking for new ideas about the influence of Wagner on later music dramas. * WAGNERSPECTRUM *Not only a history of opera after Wagner, but an attempt to make a case for Wagner in twenty-first-century composition and performance. * TEMPO *An enticing project and a worthwhile read. * BBC RADIO 3, MUSIC MATTERS *Compelling. * GRAMOPHONE *Table of ContentsIntroduction: 'After Wagner' Wagner 'After Wagner': Parsifal Arnold Schoenberg's 'Biblical Way': Towards Moses und Aron Richard Strauss: Paths to [and from] Capriccio Luigi Dallapiccola, Il Prigioniero: Imprisonment, Liberty, and the Word Luigi Nono, Intolleranza 1960 Hans Werner Henze: The Path to [and from] Natascha Ungeheuer Stefan Herheim's Parsifal Staging Lohengrin, or not From Wagner to Nono Bibliography

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Book SynopsisThis is the first book by an experienced conductor to explore the orchestras contribution to Mozarts greatest operatic works: Idomeneo, Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail, Die Schauspieldirektor, Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, Cosi fan tutte, La clemenza di Tito, and Die Zauberflote. It is written for the concert and opera going public who are interested in enlarging their knowledge and appreciation of these masterpieces, but also contains many practical suggestions for aspiring conductors.Trade Review"There is plenty that the professional musician can learn from Myer Fredman and many an interesting fact or comment which can be appreciated by layman and professional alike. It is a pleasure to welcome this excellent addition to the literature about these towering masterpieces." From the Foreword by Sir Charles Mackerras"Fredman's hands-on experience conducting the Mozart operas is reflected in many a passing titbit of professional wisdom or practical advice." Opera Quarterly

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Book SynopsisThis book is about the drama that takes place within the world of opera and provides an insight into how opera has evolved and functions. The Creators describes some of the ways that composers use the language of music, and liaise with their librettists. The Re-Creators explains the functions of conductors, producers, designers, repetiteurs, the chorus and orchestra, singers, the Fach system (by which voice types are categorised), understudies, and the prompter. Information is provided on Training, the Audition Process, Competitions, the Rehearsal Schedule, Opera Administration and the Audience (including its effect on the performers), as well as on the claque system, types of applause, and music critics (and their effect on the artist). Opera companies (festival, seasonal and touring), television opera and video performances are all fully explored. A final Overview explains how opera has adapted to changing social conditions from Monteverdi to the present day, and points to what the future might hold. An Interlude includes a number of humorous incidents and cautionary tales, and a comprehensive Glossary unravels the jargon of the most frequently used operatic terms.Trade Review"This fascinating book is for those who love opera, those who know nothing about opera and especially for those who know what they like but don't know why. Every piece of information you could conceivably want to know about the "exotic and irrational entertainment" is to be found between these covers. Myer Fredman has passed a lifetime of experience in the opera house and writes with understanding and humour to produce a valuable insight into an extraordinary world. Whether you think you know it all or if you know nothing, read on to discover a myriad of fascinating insights into this curious genre of entertainment." -- From the Foreword by Dame Joan Sutherland and Maestro Richard Bonynge."Fredman brings 40-plus years of experience as an international conductor to this text. Rather than focusing on individual operatic plots, Fredman describes the drama that has taken place in the world of opera itself over the past 400 years. His insights into the backstage, preparation, sets, costumes, producers, conductors, singers - and their foibles - are intended to give members of the opera-going public - from the novice to the seasoned aficionado - a greater sense of the complexity of staging an opera, and an enhanced appreciation of the art fom." -- Book NewsTable of ContentsContents: Preface; Acknowledgements; Introduction; The Dove is Born (1647-1683); The Dove Turns Bellicose (1683-1684); The Dove Flies Abroad (1683-1688); The Dove Returns to France (1689-1693); The Lion and the Dove; The Hawk and the Dove; The International Dove (1693-1696); The Mystical Dove; The Sacrificial Dove (1697-1698); Epilogue: Reconsidering the Revocation; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

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Book SynopsisThis book is about the drama that takes place within the world of opera and provides an insight into how opera has evolved and functions. The Creators describes some of the ways that composers use the language of music, and liaise with their librettists. The Re-Creators explains the functions of conductors, producers, designers, repetiteurs, the chorus and orchestra, singers, the Fach system (by which voice types are categorised), understudies, and the prompter. Information is provided on Training, the Audition Process, Competitions, the Rehearsal Schedule, Opera Administration and the Audience (including its effect on the performers), as well as on the claque system, types of applause, and music critics (and their effect on the artist). Opera companies (festival, seasonal and touring), television opera and video performances are all fully explored. A final Overview explains how opera has adapted to changing social conditions from Monteverdi to the present day, and points to what the future might hold. An Interlude includes a number of humorous incidents and cautionary tales, and a comprehensive Glossary unravels the jargon of the most frequently used operatic terms.Trade Review"This fascinating book is for those who love opera, those who know nothing about opera and especially for those who know what they like but don't know why. Every piece of information you could conceivably want to know about the "exotic and irrational entertainment" is to be found between these covers. Myer Fredman has passed a lifetime of experience in the opera house and writes with understanding and humour to produce a valuable insight into an extraordinary world. Whether you think you know it all or if you know nothing, read on to discover a myriad of fascinating insights into this curious genre of entertainment." -- From the Foreword by Dame Joan Sutherland and Maestro Richard Bonynge."Fredman brings 40-plus years of experience as an international conductor to this text. Rather than focusing on individual operatic plots, Fredman describes the drama that has taken place in the world of opera itself over the past 400 years. His insights into the backstage, preparation, sets, costumes, producers, conductors, singers - and their foibles - are intended to give members of the opera-going public - from the novice to the seasoned aficionado - a greater sense of the complexity of staging an opera, and an enhanced appreciation of the art fom." -- Book NewsTable of ContentsContents: Preface; Acknowledgements; Introduction; The Dove is Born (1647-1683); The Dove Turns Bellicose (1683-1684); The Dove Flies Abroad (1683-1688); The Dove Returns to France (1689-1693); The Lion and the Dove; The Hawk and the Dove; The International Dove (1693-1696); The Mystical Dove; The Sacrificial Dove (1697-1698); Epilogue: Reconsidering the Revocation; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

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Book SynopsisWHAT MAKES AN OPERA SINGER? And where in the making of a performance is the identity of the singer themselves? Linda Kitchen goes behind the scenes with prominent voices who have valuable insight about the world of opera, discussing what it means to be a performer, how they got into the profession and how who they are affects how they perform. Illustrated with photos of the artists in places that lend meaning to their lives by renowned photographer Nobby Clark.Trade ReviewAn intriguing and richly-detailed insight into the minds, routines, concerns and joys of being an opera singer. A must-read for all performers." - Martin Duncan, Opera and Theatre Director "Linda Kitchen has done a great job curating a fascinating insight into the professional lives of some of our best-loved singers and sure to be of interest to a next generation of young artists." - Lynne Dawson, Head of the School of Vocal Studies and Opera, Royal Northern College of Music.

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Book SynopsisWhat makes an opera singer?And where in the making of a performance is the identity of the singer themselves?Linda Kitchen goes behind the scenes with prominent voices who have valuable insight about the world of opera, discussing what it means to be a performer, how they got into the profession and how who they are affects how they perform.Illustrated with photos of the artists in places that lend meaning to their lives by renowned photographer Nobby Clark.Trade ReviewAn intriguing and richly-detailed insight into the minds, routines, concerns and joys of being an opera singer. A must-read for all performers." —Martin Duncan, Opera and Theatre Director"Linda Kitchen has done a great job curating a fascinating insight into the professional lives of some of our best-loved singers and sure to be of interest to a next generation of young artists." —Lynne Dawson, Head of the School of Vocal Studies and Opera, Royal Northern College of Music.Table of Contents Biographies - La favorite, Donizetti Prologue - Noises, Sounds & Sweet Airs, Nyman Act One ‘Shoving us from the jetty’ Scene One - Family background Scene Two - School days Scene Three - Defining moment Scene Four - Singing study Scene Five - Preparing Act Two ‘Carry on – it’s going very well’ Scene One - The unfolding Scene Two - Learning the score Scene Three - Warming up Scene Four - The feeling of singing Act Three ‘No good playing Mime as if you’re Brad Pitt’ Scene One - Character, text, drama Scene Two - Body work Scene Three - The essence Scene Four - Problems Scene Five - Humour Intermission - by Thomas Allen Act Four ‘Goodies and Baddies’ Scene One - People around you Scene Two - Composers Scene Three - Conductors Scene Four - Directors Scene Five - Designers Scene Six - Agents Scene Seven - Reviewing reviewers Act Five ‘Bowls of sushi on a conveyor belt’ Scene One - Changing paths Scene Two - Legacy Scene Three - Family Scene Four - Life beyond the job Scene Five - The future Scene Six - Advice Epilogue - Hänsel und Gretel, Humperdinck

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