Description
Book SynopsisOffers a view of opera buffa in the theatrical world of late-eighteenth-century Vienna. This book attributes opera buffa's success to its ability to provide 'sheer' pleasure and hence explores how the genre functioned as entertainment. It shows how the arias and ensembles convey a multifaceted picture of the repertory's social values and habits.
Trade ReviewWinner of the 2000 Otto Kinkeldey Prize for best musicological book of 1999, American Musicological Society Co-Winner of the 2000 Otto Kinkeldey Award, American Musicological Society "Although opera buffa and Mozart's opera in general have been studied by many scholars and from many points of view, Hunter's work, based on such a large bosy of scores, provides new proofs and a unique focus on the entertainment value of the works."--Choice "A major addition to a central topic in Mozart studies."--Julian Rushton, Times Literary Supplement "Indisputably the most comprehensive discussion yet published on the repertory of Viennese opera that forms the context for Mozart's comic operas."--Eighteenth-Century Studies "Hunter's work establishes a pattern for interpreting opera that will surely be imitated. If her thoroughly systematic approach to unraveling meaning in opera is followed in similarly uncompromising, contextual analysis, there is much of eighteenth-century opera, of all kinds and locations, that we will yet learn. This is a marvelous beginning."--Dale E. Monoson, Current Musicology
Table of ContentsPreface and AcknowledgmentsEditorial PoliciesAbbreviationsIntroduction3Pt. 1Opera Buffa as EntertainmentCh. 1Opera Buffa as Sheer Pleasure27Ch. 2Opera Buffa's Conservative Frameworks52Ch. 3Opera Buffa's Social Reversals71Pt. 2The Closed Musical Numbers of Opera Buffa and Their Social ImplicationsCh. 4Arias: Some Issues95Ch. 5Class and Gender in Arias: Five Aria Types110Ch. 6Ensembles156Ch. 7Beginning and Ending Together: Introduzioni and Finales196Pt. 3Cosi Fan Tutte le Opere? A Masterwork in ContextCh. 8Cosi fan tutte in Conversation247Ch. 9Cosi fan tutte and Convention273App. 1Operas Consulted299App. 2Musical Forms in Opera Buffa Arias305App. 3Plot Summaries for I finti eredi, Le gare generose, and L'incognita perseguitata309Works Cited313Index323
